Planet of the Sith
by gythia
Summary: A young Sith escapes her heritage to become a Jedi. Star Wars / Time Yarns crossover.
1. Chapter 1

Sith 1:

Planet of the Sith

"Hush! I'm gonna show the contraband!"

The voice of Dije Kun's boyfriend, Kijur, cut through the buzz of conversation like a lanvarok, but did nothing to cut the drifting strobe. Almost everybody at the neon was doing strobe.

All the young Antithesis gathered around the holo-projector, murmuring and elbowing each other. Anyone from outside "Dullsville", as they called their city's Sithtown, would have thought they were going to watch pornography, or maybe gladiatorial combat. Dije enjoyed imagining outsiders scratching their heads when the Holonet News logo appeared above the projector.

The murmuring stopped as the date-stamp scrolled through the air, marking this New Republic broadcast as three years old. The reporter materialized and began speaking. "President Organa-Solo will be traveling to her husband's homeworld of Corellia next week for an important trade summit… Tragedy struck over Carmooine this morning when a passenger liner collided with… A revolutionary breakthrough in the world of medicine…"

Only an occasional whispered comment and the whistling sound of teenagers taking hits off strobe pipes competed with the newscaster. Spilled light from the hologram intensified the electric blues, day-glow pinks, and florescent greens of the Brights' dungarees and loose gauze tunics.

The image in the air changed to a massive stone building in a jungle. "And our feature tonight, the seventh anniversary of the founding of the Jedi Academy on Yavin 4. Here, students from all over the New Republic gather to re-create the order of the Jedi Knights." The view switched to the reporter and a woman with silver hair and pearlescent eyes. She wore a black robe, looking for all space like the despised parents of the party-goers. "With us tonight is Tionne, the Academy's historian."

Derisive laughter drowned out the reporter's introduction. Someone spat at the projection, breaking up the picture. When it returned, it showed several black-robed apprentices standing around the temple, head-sized rocks suspended in midair all around them.

"The place is a funeral home!" one of the Brights jeered. In the next instant, the teen turned red and clutched at his throat.

Kijur paused the holo-cast. "If you don't wanna look at the contraband, go in the back and bite glit! Or something."

"Hey, brighten, Kijur," said Dije. "Let him go. I want to see this too, but let's not go all proper over it."

Kijur shrugged and the boy gasped, sucking in air and wayward strobe smoke. The heckler retreated to the apartment's kitchen while the rest of the holo-cast played uninterrupted.

Phrases from the Jedi woman's explanation of training stuck in Dije's mind and burned like teargas: "A Jedi acts when he is calm. Do or do not, there is no try. The Way of the Jedi is a hard path; the easy road leads to the dark side."

The dark side? There were sides to the Force? Bright and dark, like Antithesis always said but could not prove? Could this, at last, be a truly different way?

Although the young people at the neon called themselves Antithesis, and dressed in brilliant colors, what Kijur had just done showed they were still Sith underneath. It was not so easy to reject one's upbringing.

The neon really got going after the viewing, when two more Brights showed up with offworld whiskey and Fruitioner party-platters. The sources of the food and drink ensured the absence of Angasine, which both Fruitioners and Antithesis avoided when they could. Dije hardly paid attention, though. She was still thinking about the words of Tionne. Was there really a second side to the Force?

Kijur came out of the refresher with his hair dyed bright pink. "Hey, you like?"

Dije smiled. "I like. Wish I dared do something like that." Dije's own hair was an unremarkable brown, and so were her eyes. She had a light tan despite trying to stay out of the blazing desert sun, and she was heavy.

"So why don't you? You're strong enough to stand up to your parents. I haven't seen any marks on you all year, you must be fighting back and winning."

"It's not them. I mean, yeah, they'd be mad, but, it's my uncle. He's staying with us now. Lost a turf war, had to leave his apartment."

"Lord Thodvexer?" Kijur's eyes widened. There were not many of the Dark Lords that Kijur referred to by the proper title; only the ones that scared him.

"Yeah. He's a real Eighth when he's annoyed."

"Wow. Hey, let's forget your uncle. How about a little Opposite of Hate? Best antidote there is." He winked and put an arm around her waist.

"OK." Dije wasn't really enthusiastic about making love right then, but it was better than thinking about her uncle. Dije and Kijur found an unoccupied room. They clutched at a hollow imitation of love as if practice could perfect it into the real thing.

They dropped their shields, but that did not elevate their lovemaking into the realm of the ethereal. Telepathic sex was overrated. As soon as their minds touched, Kijur knew Dije appreciated his contraband more than his technique.

Through their telepathic link, Kijur thought at her, *Hey, will you stop thinking about that Tionne woman for one moment! Are you going curve?*

*No, brighten! Brighten. It's what she said that's stuck in my head.*

*You're going Jedi! Death and darkness!*

*No! Yes. Maybe. I don't know.*

Kijur broke the link. Out loud, he whispered, "And you said you were scared to dye your hair!"

It was night on Coruscant. President Organa-Solo had just turned off her computer when her comm chirped. She sighed. Somehow she didn't think it was just the kids wanting to say heloo. She touched the accept button.

General Cracken's face appeared on the flatscreen. "Madame President."

"General."

"May I come to your office? I have a preliminary report that should not be done over comm."

Leia raised her brows. Cracken's own security officers guaranteed communications security; the same department swept her office for bugs on a regular schedule. "Yes, General, please come now." Leia guessed the General had been sitting on the report all day and had waited for most of the staff to go home. She was a bit impatient at the cloak and dagger routine, but used one of the Jedi calming excercises Luke had taught her, and tried to relax at her desk.

When General Cracken arrived, he wasted no time on pleasantries.

"We've been investigating a story circulating among the far traders, about a blockaded planet out past corporate space, whose automated blockade has broken down. The story is true: it's Sith-ta, the planet of the Sith."

Leia inhaled sharply. "And these Sith can get out now?"

"Have been getting out for some time, evidently, in small numbers. The orbital weapons broke down piece by piece, opening gaps in the sky that are safe for ships to traverse. In parts of the Corporate Sector, Sith Guards are something of a fashion. Now here's the odd part. The Sith aren't in charge on Sith-ta. They were conquered by a home-grown resistance group that has ruled Sith-ta for over two hundred years now. They call themselves the Governtists."

"So, are the Sith a threat, or not?"

"That remains for further analysis. I hope to have a complete report for you by next month. But it appears the Governtists have them under control. In fact, the Governtists have been discussing contacting the New Republic to talk about opening a trade route. They're interested in supplying us with raw materials for warship armor."

"Hm. A route through Corporate space, right?"

"Yes."

"Find out how the CSA is likely to react to that. I want to know what sort of situation I'm dealing with before the Governtists approach us."

Cracken pulled a handcomp out of his pocket and made a note. "Will do. I'll make an appointment to discuss the full report when it's ready."

"Very good, General. Good night."

After the door hissed closed behind him, and Leia was alone, she sat back and enunciated a choice swearword: "Sithspawn."

Coruscant was the capitol of the old Empire, but the new Empire had many competing capitols, Coreward from the old. One of them was Channedlic One, an ordinary airless rock orbiting an unremarkable yellow star. Its one grace was a subsurface installation which had once belonged to Black Sun. Only the port facilities and communications rigs sat on the surface, visible from above. Channedlic One's claim to Imperial honors came from the Star Destroyer Supremacy, currently in orbit above the port and disgorging a shuttle.

The shuttle descended, resembling a three-pointed throwing weapon hurtling toward the planet. The lower two wings folded up in the landing cycle and the shuttle settled onto the landing pad. The port extruded an accordion tube and a port crewer made it fast to the hull. The airlock cycled and Captain Bellam Minosaronous emerged, returned the crewer's salute, and strode into the port. He took a lift car down ten levels to the most protected area of the installation, where High Admiral Andru Cinn awaited him.

Cinn's office was starkly utilitarian. "Yes, Captain, what is this great discovery of yours?" Cinn spoke in refined tones, which he groomed as carefully as his uniform and fingernails. He was middle-aged and painfully thin.

In contrast, Captain Minosaronous was jowly and wore his thick, black hair barely within regulation length. His voice resembled a mole miner crushing rock.

"Our spies tell us the Corporate Sector Authority has found a new source of mercenaries: Sith-ta, the Sith homeworld."

This news startled the self-appointed High Admiral so much he forgot to affect a rarified accent. "The what?"

"I hardly believed it myself, sir, but Intelligence has provided visuals." He held up a datacube. "Enhanced from a macrobinocular recording. Would you care to see it?"

High Admiral Cinn nodded in what he hoped was regal calmness. He looked more like a painting of a man on a taught bowstring. At his nod, Minosaronous plugged the cube into the viewer and activated the playback.

The image was blurry despite enhancement, but the team of four men exiting the lighter were unmistakably dressed in black jumpsuits, cloaks, boots, and gauntlets. Except for being helmetless, they instantly reminded him of Vader. Ambition stirred within him, very much like the constant hunger he lived with because he starved himself in order to look more Tarkinesque. However, this was a hunger he would indulge.

"Mercenaries, did you say, Captain?"

"Yes, sir. The squad in this recording works for a bounty hunter. Ah, the best part is next."

The view of the macrobinocular recording shifted rapidly left, and came to rest on a motley gang of humans and aliens flailing their arms, legs, tentacles, flippers, and less identifiable extremities as they floated through the air. The group drifted past their captors and into the ship.

One of the humans caught hold of the edge of the airlock and tried to launch himself at one of the Sith. He aborted his movement in a sudden paroxysm. The captive's hand went to his throat. He floated into the ship, still clutching at his neck, and the four Sith followed him in. The ramp rolled up and hatch closed. The recording ended.

"Emperor's bones!" whispered Cinn. "Vaders-for-hire! I must have some."

Dije couldn't wait to show Tal a copy of the Jedi interview. Tal Nexut was her oldest friend, a neighbor boy she had known since she was born. He was a fully initiated Sith with a forehead tattoo, but like her, still yearned for something more. He was been a Bright for a while at Dije's age, but had decided the Antithesis had no real alternative way, so he had gone ahead and gotten initiated. A year later, he and Dije had flirted with Fruitioner philosophy, but both had abandoned it after a few months. Dije, two years younger than Tal, had started hanging out with the Brights only recently, about the time Tal got a job in town.

Dije waited for him outside his apartment, sitting on the aging, cracked presscrete steps. She reflected on her mental conversation with Kijur. "Turning Jedi." Dare she even think it? It was just a little seed of an idea, now. Dije would shelter it, feed it. Was there really a second side to the Force?

A screaming little girl ran down the street, pursued by her brother, who threw Brek lizards at her. The red and yellow creatures exploded with loud pops, spattering green guts on girl, boy, and street. The girl ran up to a tattooed woman sitting on a flight of steps down the street form Dije.

"Mommy! Nikis is thwowin lizard bombs at me!"

"I can see that," snapped the Sith mother, taking a hit from her strobe pipe. "Do you do something to get him back right now! Don't come whining to me when he does it again!"

The girl twisted up her face and darted into the building. Her brother tried to follow, but mom caught his hair and yanked him to a stop. "You explode one of those in the apartment and I'll stick one in your ear." Then she let him chase his little sister. Mom went back to her strobe.

Dije was unmoved by this scene. This was the way of the world. She did not hope to change it, only escape it.

Tal came home, riding on a fifth-hand speederbike older than the sagging slum he lived in. "Hi, Dije."

"Got something to show you."

"Bright! Help me with this water?' He indicated the case of spring water in the bike's small cargo carrier, which was an upturned metal box lid bolted to the back of the speeder. Dije obliged by floating the case up the stairs while Tal walked the bike up. The repulsor field could not handle stairs without help from Tal's Force abilities. Either Tal or Dije could have handled both box and speeder by themselves, but they disliked having to think about people they hated any more strongly than they had to. One object did not take much hate.

Inside, they popped a couple of waters and sprawled on Tal's parents' good sofa. "So what's the big surprise?"

Dije dug the holocube out of her pants pocket. She had nicked it from Kijur late in the party, when he had done enough strobe not to care. "You know how we're always saying there's got to be another way? The governtists are even worse than the Dark Lords, and there's no magic among the Fruitioners, whatever they may say about their gods."

"Yeah. And I don't think I'd make much of a butler for a Governtists, or much of a pacifist either." Tal smiled. "And you know, your Antithesis buddies don't really have another way, either."

"No. I'm starting to think you're right about that. Kijur can be such a—well." Dije waved a dismissive hand. "But maybe we've got the words right, even if we don't have the substance."

"What, bright and dark?"

"Tal, do your parents have any way of checking what's been watched in the holoprojector here?"

"No. Not that I'd let them check on me. You know what this means," Tal tapped the starburst tattoo on his forehead. "I'm an adult now."

The Blackstar tattoo was a circle with ten lines projecting from it, symbolizing the ten traditional Force talents of the Sith. The five common talents, which all Sith had, were shields, telepathy, telekinesis, telepathic subjugation, and combat enhancement. These were symbolized by the long rays. The short rays stood for the rare talents: prescience, clairvoyance, healing, control of electric flows, and field effect. In recent generations, the latter was becoming common.

"Yeah," Dije nodded. "I know. You still live with your folks because the warehouse doesn't pay you much."

"There aren't that many kinds of jobs they let us have."

Dije took a big swallow of the untainted water and collected her thoughts. The question she had been asking herself since last night burned just below vocalization. Did she dare? With Tal she could dare anything.

"What if there's a second side to the Force?"

Tal sat up straight. "A bright side, you mean?"

Dije nodded.

Tal gestured to the holocube. "Let's see it."

Dije tossed him the cube and Tal fussed with the cranky holoprojector. "You know, I told Dad not to buy anything from the Kolvetten gang. They're not ripoff artists, they're ripoff turpentiners."

"This'd peel the paint right off their hides. Old Kolvetten's a real muckety." Dije did not offer to fix the machine through the Force, although she could. Tal liked to be the man and fix things.

The second viewing was even more powerful than the first. Without the sneering Brights distracting her, Dije could concentrate on the message. "The one who can act, must act," Tionne said. "We are the guardians of the New Republic, as we were of the Old. A Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him." The part that had been lost in static the first time turned out to contain the name of the Academy's founder and head instructor: Luke Skywalker. Dije recognized the name from a previous viewing of contraband news. He had blown something up and killed some king or other. Obviously not a pacifist; maybe Tal would consider…?

The recording ended. At length, Tal got up and shut off the projector. Still silent, he wandered into the kitchen. Dije joined him and accepted a fruit slice.

"That's certainly a different way," Tal said.

Dije nodded, encouraging. She could tell Tal was about to make a speech.

"Everything we've wanted. Not a way of hatred, like the Sith and the Governtists. Not full of make-believe magic, like the Fruitioners. Not a denial without anything to fill the void, like the Antithesis. But—Jedi? Dije, it's crazy. Us?"

"Why not us?"

"Well, for starters, we're their natural enemies."

"Or so the histories written by the Governtists say."

"Yeah." Tal smiled. "True."

"What little they do say," continued Dije. "Never mentioned a light side of the Force."

Tal nodded.

"Those clips showed people doing the same things we do. Only without having to be angry. What if we could do that?"

"But there isn't enough in that recording for us to do much of anything with," Tal objected.

"It's enough for a start. It won't be easy. In even says on there it isn't supposed to be easy. But it's got to be better than what we've got."

Tal levered himself up to sit on the kitchen counter. "Well—if we're going to do it, we'll have to do it all the way. Sticking around Dullsville trying to be calm isn't going to get us very far. We'd have to go to that Academy."

"Yes! So you're with me?"

Tal's expression soured. "Dije, you'd never be able to get off-planet. We sure as darkness can't buy passage, and you can't work as a Guard without a tattoo. Not to mention the fact that you're fourteen. You couldn't get a passport without your parents' permission, unless you get a tattoo and become a legal adult."

Dije was undiscouraged. "You're always the practical one, Tal."

He shook his head. "The only ships that would take you without documents are the smugglers, and they wouldn't hire you without a tattoo either, even if you wait long enough to become an adult without one."

"Then I need a tattoo," Dije said. Despite having smoked strobe last night, Dije had never felt more sober. "Getting initiated as a Sith is a funny way to start a quest to beome a Jedi, isn't it?"

"Sure is. But if you really want off this rock, that's the only game in town."

"Um. You can help me with the training, right?"

"Of course."

"And maybe we can try—no, do, like Tionne said—maybe we can find a way to reach the light."

Tal nodded. "Just about the only practical instruction I could glean from that was to act from calm. The Fruitioners have exercises for that."

"Oh, practical Tal! I knew you'd figure out something useful! I'll come with you into spittintown tomorrow and visit a Fruitioner recording store while you're at work."

"Alright. Let's watch this thing again. I need to think." He slid off the counter, and they went back to the main room. "Do you have money to shop with?"

"Some. Pawned my chrono last week. Used most of it for strobe, but I left myself some walking-around money."

Tal fiddled with the projector, struggling to bring the picture into alignment. "We're out of our minds, you know."

"Maybe the rest of the galaxy is out of theirs."

Tal got the projector working, and cued through to the feature. "You know, I always thought the Jedi must be like the Governtists: using the Force for law and order and calling their anger righteous indignation. But the Governtists wanted us to think that."

"Yeah."

"OK. Here it goes."

In a climate-controlled office in Edrus, capitol city of Sith-ta, Records Supervisor Ketrick called for his clerk, Shad. Shad brought in a handcomp to take notes.

A granite-faced man in a Public Safety uniform plucked the small computer out of Shad's hand the moment the door closed. "Sit down, Shad, or whatever your name is," Ketrick said. "It's too bad, really. You were good at organizing files. I guess spies have to be detail men."

"I don't know what you're-"

"It's enough," the Public Safety man interrupted. "I've got a good read."

"So what is he?" asked Ketrick. "He's obviously not Sith, he broadcasts like a news tower."

"Offworlder. New Republic Intelligence."

Shad protested, "You've made a mistake."

"Save it," the Public Safety man said, eyes narrowing in concentration. "Captain Pitr Daws."

Shad/Daws abandoned his meek persona and drew a compact blaster. Before he could fire, an invisible hand yanked it away from him. The blaster pistol flew into the counterintelligence officer's grip. Daws felt pressure in a ring all around his body, preventing him from moving.

"So," said the granite faced man. "You want to report on the government, culture, and general situation on Sith-ta. Fine with me. I'll even help you write your report."

Ketrick signaled an aide to bring concentrate candy. Even with angasine in the water supply, sometimes the Governtists needed a little extra. This might be one of those times for the Public Safety man, and a good citizen helped out any way he could.

The aide brought a platter of little jewels, glittering wicked red, poisonous yellow and tempting green. The stony-faced man lodged a piece of candied hate in one cheek. He recited a list of names, and savored the bitter taste of each one as the candy slowly released the drug. They were the names of his old enemies, the hatred connected with each one as comfortable and familiar as his jackboots. This was the most basic dark side exercise for calling power, one the Governtists shared with the Sith from whom they came.

Pumped up on angasine, the officer felt the hate flowing for him, and he let it build, build, build, until the office lights flickered and his hair stood on end. Then he burst into Daws' mind and seized everything he found there. He carried off useful bits of information, leaving the personality in place but hollowed out, to be filled up with whatever his caprice placed there. The Governtist formed the wet mindstuff like clay, into a sculpture worthy of Sith-ta. Oh yes, Captain Pitr Daws would be reporting to his masters, but he would be reporting history and current events as endorsed by Public Safety. No outworlder must know how the Governtists defeated the Sith. Let them think it was all by goodwill and strength of character.

Sith-ta had been blockaded for two thousand years. The Governtists could not risk the offworlders having cause to rebuild the blockade. Sith-ta needed trade. It needed improved technology for clean industry and lifesaving medicine. The sheer injustice of the blockade infuriated the officer, fueling his assault on Daws' mind. When he was done, Daws was his creature, devoid of will and spirit. The Public Safety man was proud of his accomplishment; he had saved the world.

Dije rode behind Tal on his speederbike through the litter-chocked streets of the Sith part of Kamex. They rode without helmets. Fear, too, could fuel the Force; if they spilled the bike, they would never touch the ground.

Dije felt the cold wash of the demarcation line where her uncle's territory ended and the Kolvetten streets began. Kolvetten was rich by virtue of strategic location: anyone passing from dullsville to spittintown had to go through his territory. The Lords of other territories grumbled, but they paid the tax; if any area's people were cut off from their jobs in town, that territory was going to be seething with desperation, and that was a recipe for a stab in the back.

Dije blinked dust out of her eyes. They were heading for a middle-class area of the starport of Kamex, to the same shop they had often visited when trying out the Fruitioner religion. This was the farthest from home she had gone, except for the time she and Tal went with a group of Fruitioners all the way past the mountains and into the fertile farmland beyond.

There they had joined hundreds of others in earth-tone robes feasting by the light of the bonfires. Dije and Tal had sung and danced with the others, so happy, so sure they would find their true other way in the morning. The drums had woken them before sunrise, and the cantor boomed out, "Dawn waits for no man!" With hundreds of others, they had risen, gathering barefoot in the dark, moist field. The priestess called her gods, and then—nothing. Dije felt nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing in her mind. As the Fruitioners burst into glad song, Tal and Dije had looked at each other in bewilderment. The priestess spoke, everybody threw things, and that was it. It was over. No power, no magic. Nothing happened. The Fruitioner religion was about faith, not the Force.

Dije had felt the Force all her life. He infant tantrums had sent things crashing all around her, earning her praise and punishment by turns, depending on criteria she couldn't fathom. All her life she had seen magic worked by everyone she knew, and had felt the currents of power as plainly as desert sunlight. Dije was incapable of faith. She had never needed it.

The speeder's ride smooth out as it turned onto well-maintained pavement. This part of Kamex was tree-lined and clean. The buildings were freshly painted, or else built of carmel colored sandstone instead of the cleap presscrete of Dullsville.

Tal dropped Dije off in front of the Center for Enlightenment and went to work.

The early morning chill of Yavin 4 clung to the vast chamber that was once a flight deck, and was once a temple of the Massassi. A young pilot named Luke Skywalker had boarded his first X-wing fighter in this room.

Now where the young pilot had been, a mature man in a black jumpsuit stalked a remote. His eyes were closed, his mind open. Luke reached out with his feelings and found the hovering ball. An instant before it fired, Luke drew and activated his lightsaber. He moved the glowing green blade to the precise spot to intercept the remote's sting beam, at the precise angle to bounce it back at the remote. The red beam touched the remote and deactivated it. It fell to the floor.

The Jedi Master opened his eyes and turned off his weapon. "This is too easy. Artoo, power up the other four remotes. I'll take on all five at once."

The little droid whistled uncertainly.

Luke smiled. "Yes, Artoo, I'll be careful. I have a feeling I'm going to need all my skill very soon."

Dije sensed the anger emenating from her house and considered wandering around Dullsville looking for a neon. But even a local didn't walk alone in any city's Sithtown at night, unless he was suicidal or a Dark Lord. Dusk was rapidly turning into true dark. If her parents were fighting, it surely couldn't be worse than the street.

She touched the precious recordings in her inner pocket as she slunk up the steps. Dije did her best to be invisible; nobody here but us shadows. She slid the door open quietly, and crept into the whirlwind of flying kitchen utensils. Carefully, she slid the door closed and snuck across the floor, sticking close to the wall. She was almost to the hallway. A few more steps and she'd be out of sight.

Her luck ran out. Mrs. Kun spotted her and levitated a dirty towel off the counter at Dije. "And you!"

Dije deflected the object.

"Look at you! You little pudge!" Mrs. Kun hurled a freezer canister, which Dije batted aside with a weary burst of fear and hate. "Didn't I teach you to keep in shape?"

Mr. Kun joined in. "How do you ever expect to get a husband looking like that?"

Dije bit her tongue. Pointing out that she had been sleeping with Kijur would certainly not help.

Mrs. Kun turned her anger back to its original target, and plunked a spoon at her husband. "Lotta good that did me! You good-for-nothing…"

Dije took advantage of the distraction to retreat to the hallway, and then into the former closet she was using as a bedroom. Her parents had moved into her room when Uncle Thodvexer claimed the master suite.

The recordings were audio only, the cheap versions. Music and guided meditation hardly needed visuals anyway, Dije thought. She attached her one working earbug to the player and listened to all the recordings in succession, greedily, far into the night, blocking out the sound of screeching and falling pots and pans.

Gradually, she came to a kind of inner silence. When the last recording ended, she took off the earbug and rubbed her eyes. The house was quiet and dark. She realized it must be very late, and she had been calm for hours. Although she had been avoiding angasine for a long time, spending several straight hours without being angry was an accomplishment. She felt heartened. Her quest might be achievable!

The Governtists depended on angasine, which is why they put it in the water. But a Sith upbringing was deliberately designed to create a lifetime supply of rage, an energy reserve that could never be exhausted. She knew it, and she hated her parents for it—and knew that was exactly what they wanted.

Leia and Han relaxed on a bench in the Botanical Gardens, watching their children flit around the plantlife on display. Threepio wailed in robotic frustration, trying to keep the three children from scattering.

Han took Leia's hand. "I don't like the idea of you going to a planet full of Sith. It's only a trade talk. Somebody else could go."

"Our intelligence reports confirm what the government of Sith-ta says: the Sith are under control. They're not allowed to join the government or the military, hold certain jobs, or own property above a certain value. They have no direct power, and no indirect power either. The Governtists are a group of people with natural mental shields. The Sith can't influence them. They evolved on the same planet with the Sith, so they developed natural shields as an adaptive mechanism. You know all that, you've seen Daws' report."

"So maybe they really are conquered. They could still be trouble."

"Which is precisely whey I have to be the one to go, Han. None of the other representatives of the New Republic have Jedi training. My mind is safe."

Han sighed. "Ah, for the good old says, when all our concerns were so simple, like blowing up superweapons, and freezing our toes off in ice caves."

"If I see a slot open for Chief Scoundrel on the trade delegation, I'll let you know."

"Yes, your Highness-ness."

Leia rolled her eyes.

Han leaned over and whispered in her ear, "I can still be a scoundrel." He planted a kiss on her ear.

"Later." Leia pushed him away, her eyes flicking to the children.

"You promise?"

Leia smiled. "I'll tell Winter not to disturb me tonight unless the palace is burning down."

As soon as Tal opened the door, Dije burst out, "Tal, I did it ! I touched the Light! It exists!"

"Well, come in! Tell me all about it!"

Dije stepped inside, and held up a recording chip. "I was listening to this tape of Fruitioner calming songs. There's this one, near the end, it has this current. I felt the Light! It was like looking up and seeing a star for the first time." Dije thrust the chip at him. "Here. Play it! I'll show you."

"Bright." Tal hurried to put the chip in the audio player. "Here goes."

Dije took Tal's hands. They stood like a two-person Fruitioner circle, borrowing the gesture along with the music. "Open up to me, Tal. Let me point the way."

As the music started, he dropped his shields. Dije's memory of rapture was clear and warm, a candle flamed sheltered by a careful hand. They stood swaying.

The song whispered, "Breathe with me. I am calm. Breathe with me. I am spirit. Shine with me. I am light. Flow with me. I am peace. Be still with me. I am strength. Breathe with me. I am spirit."

Dije soared through the veil of darkness and swept it before her like cobwebs. She brought Tal with her, mind joined to mind. They reached out, past the creaking of the building, past the people walking along the street outside like black globs of congealed hate, past the cold wash of Thodvexer's border, past the freighters venting steam at Kamex starport, out where the atmosphere thinned and the void began, where the solar winds of a billion stars brushed against each other, creating eddies and puzzle-patterns, all clear to them, all part of them, nova flares and nuclear furnaces and life, everywhere life, dotted through the void like stitchery, holding the woven universe together.

The song ended. Tal and Dije snapped back to three dimensions. Reeling, Tal collapsed to the floor. Cautiously, he flicked with his mind at a cup on the table, holding open the door to the light. In utter absence of anger, Tal knocked the cup over. "It really works."

Dije held to the light as well. She directed a mental tendril toward a piece of fruit in a bowl. It wobbled, lifted a little, then sank back. "It's damped down, or something," she muttered. "I was really focusing. It should've gone clear to the ceiling."

"Not damped. Hard." Tal quoted, "The Way of the Jedi is a hard path. The easy road leads to the dark side."

"Yeah. And this was our first try, after all," she grinned. "I felt it, but I can hardly believe it. This is do-able, Tal. We used the light side of the Force."

Getting up, Tal wondered, "Do you think anyone can tell the difference? I mean, could you get away with doing the initiation exercises with the light?"

"Dunno. If anyone could tell, it'd be my uncle."

"Maybe we should find out. Touch the light sometime when he's around. You could always claim it's a mistake."

"Lie to Uncle Thodvexer? He's still sharp, Tal. He might've started losing his border disputes, but he's not as old as he looks."

"Say you were after power. It's true enough."

Dije nodded. Half-truths were a regular practice among the Sith, where almost everyone could detect outright lies. "It's a plan. If I CAN touch the light when he's around. He's a one-man funeral."

"Sure you can." Tal walked over and righted the cup manually, and they sat down on the beige sofa. "We just touched the light in the heart of Sithtown, where old anger echoes in the walls."

"Oh, so you're a poet, now."

"I feel inspired."

Leia looked into her children's eyes and was tempted to order the porter droid to bring her luggage back out of the shuttle. "I'll only be gone for a few weeks, children. Now you mind your father and Threepio. And remember I love you all very much." Leia gathered her children in her arms. "Bye-bye, Jacen. Bye-bye, Jaina. Bye-bye, Anakin. Mommy loves you all."

Han gave her a parting kiss. In a voice pitched so the children would not hear, he urged, "Be careful, Leia. I have a bad feeling about this."

An earsplitting shriek rattled the windows of Sithtown. Then another, and another, a long shuddering raptor's cry mixed with the torture of demon spines. It was Lord Thodvexer playing his viol.

Dije retreated to her closet and put her head under a pillow. She caught herself wanting to strangle her uncle, and decided this would be a good time to experiment with the light.

The light seemed far away now, as if blown across a sheet of ice by the wind from Thodvexer's horrid playing. The pulse-beat of the underlying rhythm was an itch that couldn't be scratched. She wondered if Thodvexer could really play better, but butchered his music on purpose to annoy people and make his family and followers strong in the dark side.

Dije pushed past the anger, grasping at the light, but her desperation pushed it away. She stopped and tried again, humming the calming song. First there was a warm, soft glow, the embers of a burned-out building after a riot. Then brighter, hotter, the light grew within her.

In the main room, Lord Thodvexer played on.

"The meeting is adjourned," said President Organa-Solo. Leia's aides gathered their notes and headed out of the cruiser's briefing room. Leia paused to glance out at the needle-stars of hyperspace. Absently, she patted the pocket where her lightsaber should be, and was disconcerted when her hand touched only cloth. "That's right. I left it in my quarters. I don't really need to wear it on board, but it hasn't helped my nerves." She ran through a Jedi calming technique Luke had taught her, concentrating on her breaths. Then she swept out, head held high.

Dije arrived home at dusk from another long day practicing at Tal's. Her uncle was playing his ghastly viol again. She tried to ignore the sound as she got her special bread from the kitchen.

Thodvexer finished his piece and began tuning his instrument, withered hands lingering over ivory tabs. The Dark Lord claimed the material was an old enemy, shaped by the Force of his hate. The viol's strings were the enemy's guts, and the bow the enemy's wife's hair.

Thodvexer's voice was an old man's, although he was only middle-aged in chronological years. Channeling too much dark side energy warped the cells of the body, despite all the rare Sith healers could do. "My men brought me a most disturbing rumor, my neice."

Dije swallowed and set down her bread. "Um, what was it, Uncle Thodvexer?"

"That you have decided to become a Jedi."

Terror took her, briefly, but she clamped down on it, reflexively reaching for calm. She felt her uncle's mind brushing against her shields, a hoarfrost touch. It was truth-sending mode, she recognized. She would have to watch what she said.

That would not be a problem. As terror receded, outrage took its place. She knew where the rumor must have come from. "Kijur." Her own voice sounded shockingly malevolent. "That jealous little twit. Just because I'm spending all my time with Tal, now. Double-cross me, will he." Giving in to hate was all too easy in the Dark Lord's approving presence. Rage blossomed within her, deep and sweet, flowing like floodwater. "Kijur! Cage-hearted saboteur. I've been at Tal's practicing, not necking! Sharpening my skills for initiation. I want my tattoo, uncle. Kijur can plant all the rumors he wants, I'll never be his empty-headed Antithesis girlie again. I'll burn down his whole block to smoke him out!"

Thodvexer set down his viol and clapped. "Good, good! Your hate has made you strong. I am here, now, Dije. Begin your first test! Fly!"

Thodvexer gestured and a wall of Force hit Dije, knocking her against the door. The door sprang off its track and fell onto the landing. Dije went sailing out over the street, and then the Force punch ended.

Dije did not think of the light at all. The Kijur-shaped wound in her heart was too fresh. Rage filled every empty place within her, every micron of space between subatomic particles. Rage crowded her substance until she went off like a fusion bomb.

The Force flowed. Dije flew. She slowed her plummet toward the street, and her feet found the ground without a jolt. A confused glow-worm of memory flickered at the edges of her awareness for a moment, but then it was gone. The dark side of the Force vibrated through her.

Thodvexer strode down the presscrete steps, black cape billowing. "Good, good!" He reached the trash-strewn street. "Face your second test! Reach out to your enemy and tell me what he is thinking right this moment."

"Keeee-jur!" Dije screeched in a voice like Thodvexer's viol. She reached out, stretching her awareness over Sithtown, searching for the mind she had so often linked to her own in sweating intimacy. "He's—making love! To someone else! He—thinks she's pretty! And thin!"

If Dije's rage had been a bomb, now it was a supernova. She let loose a banshee wail that struck sparks off the rivets in the steel-frame multilevel across the street. Every light in every building in Thodvexer's territory went out.

Thodvexer bounced up and down on his heels, nearly dancing in his enjoyment of his neice's hate. "Good! Now face your third test! The Force is life, Dije. Live!" He extended his wrinkled hands. Force-lightning jabbed at Dije.

It knocked her off her feet. She wanted to scream, but couldn't breathe. The nova flare passed, leaving nothing. She didn't know what to do. Had this ever really been a test? Was Thodvexer going to kill her after all? The pain went on for eternity.

'Eternity passes swift as an hour.' It was a line from a Fruitioner song. Startled, Dije recalled the light. She rejected the dark that hates the day, shutting out everything, rage, pain, the ache in her heart, and there was only stillness.

Dije blinked herself awake. A man stood before her, transparent as a holoprojection, but without the characteristic glow. The man was a Dark Lord, so marked by the lines tattooed on either side of his mouth, in addition to the standard Sith tattoo on his forehead.

"The Force is life," the man said. The words sounded flat, as if spoken through a filtering scarf, although his face was bare. "You have lived through the storm, and proven yourself worthy of the secret knowledge. I am Rantu Exendus, Dark Lord of the Sith. I have lived in the stone below this city for six thousands turnings of the world. The Force is life. You need never die. When your life draws to a close, find the strength you found during the storm, and look for a durable place to house your spirit. Push out to your new home, and leave your body behind. This you have the strength to do, for you have survived the storm. The Force is life. You are Sith."

The apparition faded.

Dije looked around. She was lying on the floor on a maintenance deck of the sewer under Kamex.

Thodvexer leaned against a rail, he cape pulled about him to keep out the damp. "Awaken, my niece. You have what you wanted."

Dije touched her forehead. She could not feel anything different with her ordinary senses, and she was too drained to attempt to tell ink from blood with the Force. But she knew she must have a Blackstar tattoo now.

"Was that really a ghost?"

Lord Thodvexer nodded. "One among many. Sith-ta is thick with ghosts. Every Sith who has ever lived on Sith-ta is living still." He smiled cruelly. "Every tattooed Sith, that is. Your Antithesis enemy will die the true death, if he does not mend his ways."

Dije got up. She could sense them, now that she knew to look. In the walls. In the road. In old ruins lost beneath the sea. They had always been there, just out of phase, in a place apart. Sith-ta swarmed. The dead outnumbered the living.

She thought, that was what Tal was hinting about when he said old anger echoes in the walls. I never want to be one of those ruinous things.

Aloud, she asked her uncle, "Do they watch us?"

"That is doubtful, my niece. They have their own society."

'Eternity passes swift as an hour for we who are deathless.' Dije shivered. Surely that Fruitioner song couldn't've meant that. No. Did the light side of the Force have its own ghosts, its own society of the dead? Was that meditation song not a Fruitioner invention at all, but a Jedi song, remembered through two thousand years of blockade?

"Come, Dije. It is time to celebrate!"

A projector craft overflew Sithtown. It was a boxy ship with landing skids on either side and a holoprojector mounted in the belly. The Governtists rarely made announcements to the Sith, but when the projector reached Tal, he did not stop his speederbike to look up. He could hear whatever they said just fine without standing in the street like some kind of patriot.

"Attention, Sith of Kamex! Sithtown will be quarantined from tomorrow evening at sundown until further notice. Those of you with employment in Kamex, your employers have already been notified. Contact your supervisors tomorrow. You will be told whether to remain in Sithtown for the duration of the quarantine, or go to guarded barracks for essential workers. The border will be closed at sundown tomorrow." The message repeated.

Tal wondered what could be going on. He stowed his bike in his apartment and went to Dije's. He found her whole block partying in the street in the style of the adults, with contests of strength, of both physical and Force varieties, very little strobe, no glit, and lots of cheap beer.

With rare mercy, Lord Thodvexer refrained from playing his viol. Instead, a genuine Sith band sat around with their eyes closed in front of drums, a giant brass horn, and a steel sitar that appeared to be playing themselves.

Two of Thodvexer's gang amused themselves with target practice on a row of old skulls. One of the men still had a leg brace due to his wounds in the most recent turf war.

A circle of laughing tattooed Sith casually tortured a naked man from another territory. A solemn toddler poked at the man with a piece of broken board, imitating his parents. The naked man made little movements with his hands and eyes, trying to use the Force to save himself. But there were too many of his captors. Their suppression field held him fast.

Tal spotted Dije's mother glowering at her guests near the buffet table. Then he saw Dije, and understood the reason for the party. It was her initiation celebration.

"We're one step closer to getting out of here," Tal thought. "And none too soon."

He made his way to Dije and offered his congratulations, and his flask of Fruitioner juice.

"Thanks." She took a long swig. "All the food at this funeral is the regular, tainted stuff." Dije took a second swallow and handed back the flask. "I wish the Fruitioners made cake or pastry or something."

"You don't need it."

"Oh, don't you start too," Dije snapped, eyes flashing fury.

"Brighten! I didn't mean that. Nobody needs pastry, Dije."

"Yeah, but that doesn't stop me from wanting some of that. It looks really good," Dije grumbled, dissipating her anger. "I wouldn't mind a beer, either."

"Better stay away from it, even if they have imported stuff. You'll feel like an arthritic old lady tomorrow anyway. I did. You don't need a hangover too."

She nodded. "So I've heard." She leaned closer and dropped her voice. "Tal—I didn't remember what we've been working on until it was almost over."

"It's OK. Nobody said it would be easy, right?"

"Yeah."

"So now we just go forward."

"Thanks."

Lord Thodvexer appeared, licking something vaguely like a dried aplecot. "I always said I'd nibble Sadi Lozer's ears someday!" he chortled. "Yes indeed. You can say I have a taste for my enemies. Taste? Get it? Ho ho ho!" He wrapped an arm around Tal's shoulders. "Tal, my boy! I hear you helped my niece with her training. And a fine job you did, too."

Thodvexer was weaving like a boxer. If there was anything more disturbing than an angry Dark Lord of the Sith, it was a drunken Dark Lord of the Sith. "You're both welcome to fill in for my boys who are down from the fight. I need runners, tax collectors. In fact, Dije, I'll be collecting my Month of Service immediately. Tal, you'll want to join her, because of the quarantine, yes?"

One did not refuse an offer to work for a Dark Lord. "Of course, yes," Tal replied. "To fill in. Temporarily."

Dije announced, "Gonna hire onto a ship. See the galaxy. Both of us, at the end of the Month."

Thodvexer was not at all perturbed by this news. "Ah, the life of a mercenary! I have fond memories." He hiccupped. "Did I ever tell you about the time on Bonadan—"

"Yes," put in Dije.

Thodvexer guzzled the rest of his beer and continued, enunciating carefully. "It is a certainty you will see more combat as a soldier of fortune than as one of my runners. You'll make a great enforcer when you come back. Bring home some nice trophies."

Tal asked, "So what's with the quarantine, anyway?"

Thodvexer grinned. "Clearing out the streets for the safety of an offworlder, I hear. The idiots think we Sith are still fighting the war before last. They think we might attack the President of the New Republic because her brother is a Jedi. Darkness, that was two thousand years ago! I'd rather have another beer. In fact, I will!"

The Dark Lord of the Sith staggered off in the direction of the keg. The Sith's defeat by the Jedi had indeed been a very long time ago, and the ambition of the Dark Lords had shrunk with their spheres of influence. Thodvexer's empire was six blocks wide.

Dije leaned in close to Tal. "Did you hear that? Organa-Solo is coming here! If we can get in touch with her, we could be on our way to the Academy without having to work our way across half the galaxy."

Tal looked skeptical. "All the Governtist soldiers will be trying to keep people like us away from her."

"We could pretend to be grubbers," Dije offered.

"Sith gone Governtist? But I think they have lists, or something. Identification."

"Oh. Well, you think of something, you're the practical one. This is our big chance!"

"OK, let me think. You think, too. I'm not the Department of Plans, you know."

Dije held out her hand for Tal's flash and made a m? sound. He handed it to her. Dije savored the green taste of untainted segda fruit juice, grown by people who worshipped the fields in which it grew. She handed back the flask with one sip left. "If we took work at the docks—they said essential jobs."

"No, we can't run off like that. Your uncle has us for one month. This is going to be a real short trip is we start it by hissing off a Dark Lord. Wait, I have it. We'll ask him if he needs any spies in town during the quarantine. People not known as members of his gang."

"OK. Let's ask him tonight, while he's drunk. Might say yes."

As soon as the cruiser Liberator dropped out of hyperspace, Leia felt the world of Sith-ta as a dark pressure against her mind. Out the viewport, the green-gold world hung innocently in space, a shining egg hatching a monster.

Leia had a bad feeling about this. It was too late to back out, though. She patted the lightsaber concealed in her shimmering cream gown. She almost hoped her hosts would object to her carrying a weapon, thus giving her an excuse to break off the talks. She told herself, "That's childish. Go to work."

The cruiser docked at a small space station, which appeared to have been converted from one of the automated orbital weapons stations. Holes dotted the station's hull where old gun emplacements had been removed, and the habitable part of the station was obviously much newer than the engineering section.

Leia took a shuttle to the surface with her negotiation team, while the cruiser's crew performed the routine tasks of taking on fuel, water, food, and air. The consumables would be checked for contamination, but Leia still felt uneasy. This was a variance from regulations; unlike a merchant vessel, a military ship usually did not take on supplies at unaligned ports. However, the Liberator was far beyond its normal cruising range. There was little choice but to resupply at their destination. Leia dismissed her worries from her mind. Ship's stores were the Captain's problem, not hers. She had to concentrate on diplomacy.

Her shuttle landed at the spaceport of Kamex, which was located in a desert region of Sith-ta. Although it was early morning local time, it was already uncomfortably warm as Leia emerged from her shuttle. Only a little breeze stirred the cream gown.

Governtor Avus welcomed her. He was a tall, thin man with dark hair graying at the temples, and gleaming grey eyes, dressed in a maroon suit.

A marching band performed for her and the few spectators and media people. The band wore gaudy white, green, and gold uniforms with huge, ridiculous hats.

Leia tried to get an impression of Avus through the Force, but all she could pick up were waves of anger boiling off all the users of the Dark Side in the vicinity. Despite the Governtists' precaution of confining the Sith to their part of Kamex while Leia was here, the city undoubtedly teemed with them. Leia dismissed her inability to get a reading off Avus, as she knew from the intelligence report that his people had natural mental shields.

Avus made the usual pleasantries, and gave a short speech for the benefit of the media. "Increasing off-world trade will bring a new prosperity to Sith-ta…" and on in like vein.

At the end of the speech and official welcome ceremony, he turned to Leia and said, "We will meet again in Edrus later this morning. I look forward to concluding a trade agreement that will be beneficial to all."

"As do I, Governtor Avus," Leia replied.

From Kamex spaceport, Leia was whisked to Edrus, the capitol city. She and her team settled into a fine hotel full of stone carvings and giltwork. Uniformed servants brought Leia and her negotiators to the gold-dome capitol building. Abstract holograms lined the reception hall, turning in random tessaracts of green and blue, red and blue and purple, and yellow-on-yellow. The opening ceremonies were thankfully brief.

Leia and Avus presented their agendas, made short speeches about their hopes for trade, both being sure to mention the co-operation of the Corporate Sector Authority. Then Leia and Avus each left their teams to work without the pressure of the leaders' presence. For the next week, the two teams would talk while Leia went on tours, attended receptions and banquets, and pressed the flesh, meeting with her team at the end of each day to review progress, and to surreptitiously check them for unwanted mental influences. At the week's conclusion, she and Avus would meet again formally to agree to whatever their aides worked out.

Back at the hotle, Leia relaxed in her suite, arranging her wardrobe in order of use for her appearances, and eating a light supper from room service. The local water had a pleasant, mildly sweet taste. All the food seemed to have it too, even the spicy dishes.

Leia decided on the deep blue dress with the gold pattern for her tour of Kamex spaceport later in the week. It was the coolest, and she had felt was it was like in Sith-ta's desert.

Tal and Dije had it all worked out. The plan was perfectly simple. Organa-Solo would be touring Kamex spaceport in three days. She would use a day hotel to rest between tours, before going on to view the countryside, and circling back to Edrus. That much information was in the official news. The name of the hotel was supposed to be a secret, but it was obvious to every worker on the docks that it had to be the Starport Keleretton, the executives' hotel with the view of the port. The port also had a view of it, and the S K was suddenly surrounded by a sensor fence with Governtist soldiers patrolling inside the perimeter.

The soldiers were not keeping out Fruitioner missionaries, though. Maybe their Public Safety bosses had decided the pacifists were harmless, or maybe they just thought it would make a good impression to have people smiling and handing out flowers, as the missionaries that hung around the starport always did.

There were ethnic Sith among the Fruitioners. Everybody knew that. Dije and Tal knew enough Fruitioner philosophy to preach with the best of them. All they needed was to get away from the worksite and get some brown robes and flowers.

Their plan was revised on the fly when they recognized a missionary they knew from when they had gone to Fruitioner religious meetings. Tal took a work break and approached him.

"Blessings, Poul."

"Blessings, Tal. So this is where you disappeared to, the docks?" If Poul noticed the addition to Tal's face, he did not remark on the tattoo.

"Yes. But this past year of work, work, work and no Festival has left me aching inside."

The man sympathized, "Can you get away next month?"

"I'm not sure. But I have this weekend off. Is your group doing anything that Dije and I might join?"

"Well, the chorus will be performing for some offworlder," Poul said doubtfully.

"Perfect! Dije and I have been practicing." Tal demonstrated by singing one of the calming songs.

"Not bad. I'll talk to the chorus leader and let you know tomorrow."

"Bright." Tal smiled. He knew they would let him and Dije sing with them. The chorus never rehearsed together anyway, as all Fruitioners knew the folk songs the chorus sang.

Leia was yelling at her aides. They were yelling back. Somebody threw one of the pretty little candies found in all the hotel rooms. The sugary missile struck the wall and left a stain of jeweled wicked red.

"I've had enough!" Leia shouted. "These talks have crawled along all week at a Hutt's pace, and now you can't even agree with each other, let alone the Governtists. Go cool your heads, everybody!"

"Go soak your head!" one of her assistants bellowed.

Leia had once been described as fiery. A few years of intermittent Jedi training had not done enough to change that. She now had several days' worth of angasine pumping through her blood, aggravated by the concentrate candy they had all just unwittingly eaten. A wall of space-black anger cut off her vision.

The assistant began to choke. At first he thought he had swallowed his candy, but it was still in his mouth. He spat it out and put a hand to his neck. The room grew silent with shock.

When Leia's vision cleared, she saw her aide turning red and everyone staring open-mouthed. It took her a few seconds more to realize she was the one causing it. She released him and fled to her suite.

Inside, she stood panting in the middle of the spacious room, hands shaking. "That was the Dark Side. This planet—it's in the air. All those Sith. Their anger is infectious." She used her Jedi exercises, but nothing could calm her. Anger turned to fear. She felt herself slipping. Finally she turned on the comm unit and contacted the cruiser. "I need to place a real time holonet call to Yavin 4 immediately."

In minutes, the reassuring face of her brother appeared on the screen. "What's wrong?"

"I wish I knew! It's this place, it has to be. Luke, I'm angry, all the time. I can't make it stop!"

He blinked, and thought a moment. "Can you leave?"

"Not really. Not right now. The talks have barely begun."

"Is this treaty that important?"

"Well, it is important. The Governtists have a lot of mineral wealth, very hard to get strategics. But also, if I break off for no reason I can explain, it will cause problems with future talks in other systems."

"Then I'll come to you. Have a fast courier ship sent here."

"Thank you, Luke."

"We'll get through this. I'll see you soon."

Tal and Dije kept their eyes on the holoclock projected over their section of the dock. Dividing their attention between clock and boxes was surprisingly difficult when working with the light.

Dije completed arranging her line of boxes and remarked, "One things about this job, we're gonna be experts at levitation."

"Yeah, we get to practice with our new fuel source and they pay us for it."

"According to boss blue-belly over there, on most planets they have droids do this."

"Droids cost money," Tal said. The conveyor from the big freighter started up again, and more boxes rolled their way. "If a droid breaks, they have to fix it. If a Sith breaks, they just get another one."

The New Republic fast courier Herald docked inside the cruiser Liberator after a record two-day run clear across Corporate space from the New Republic to the aligned worlds beyond the CSA. The pilot beamed with pride. He knew he could not have done it if his passenger had not also happened to be a great pilot, but it was still his ship and his run. He was thinking about having his name on the holonet news for the speed record as his signaled the refueling crew. "The Herald's burned its last drop, boys, but what a race it was!"

The crew chief's answer came back as a snarl. "I suppose you expect us to clean the carpet, too, do you?"

Startled, the pilot asked, "Chief?"

"You plushy boys, you zip in, zip out…"

"Chief, you're addressing an officer!"

"Yeah?" sneered the voice on the comm.. "Well, you're addressing an envelope, SIR!" The chief cackled and cut the comm..

The bewildered pilot looked back at his caped passenger.

"Don't worry about it," Luke said. "There's something odd going on here, and that's why I came."

"Yes, sir." The pilot did not sound very relieved.

Luke stepped out the hatch and looked around. The cruiser's landing bay looked just as it should, but to his Jedi senses, the ship's air hung heavy with the smoke of discontent.

He strode through the ship in the direction of the airlock into the space station. Through an open wardroom door, he saw grumbling men playing cards while a pair of their friends slugged each other and shouted insults in an alien language.

Luke did not stop. He was not here to take over for ship's security. The two crewers might break each others' noses in the effect of Sith local space, but Leia in the same state of mind was a danger to the galaxy. Luke wondered if it would have been better not to train her at all than to leave her half-trained. He should have known she would not give up her leadership responsibilities to devote herself to full time study. The words of Yoda came back to him: "A dangerous time for you this is. Incomplete is your training."

There was no point in second-guessing himself, though. He crossed into the station and found the passenger shuttle area. There were beings of all kinds in the concourse, mostly in ordinary civilian clothing. However, there were also four people dressed just like him. Each pair flanked a wealthy businessman. Bodyguards, he realized. Sith Guards.

He stared. Luke had seen a forehead tattoo like that on Exar Kun, the Dark Lord whose spirit had until recently infested Yavin 4. Their black bodysuits and black capes were nearly identical to his own.

Luke had seen the brown and white robes that Ben and Yoda wore, and which had appeared on Anikin Skywalker's spirit on Endor. But he had clothed his students in a variation of the combat suit he had worn to Jabba's palace. What impulse had guided his selection?

He looked down at himself. The silvery tube of his lightsaber was concealed in a shoulder carry, where it would appear to most security scanners as a type of shaver. Without it on his hip, he looked like a Sith.

Luke shook his head. It was coincidence, not destiny, he told himself firmly. What he needed was a good wake-up splash. He found a public refresher station and washed his face with cold water. He took a few cold swallows from his cupped hands. The taste was surprisingly sweet.

Customs officials eyed the offworlders suspiciously from beneath glittering uniform caps, but they waved Luke through without looking at his indenti-chit. "Welcome home," one of them said brusquely, handing him a flimsy about allowable hotels and routes out of the spaceport during the quarantine.

Luke took commercial transport to the surface. He could have requested an official shuttle, of course. But a visit to Sith-ta by a Jedi Master was most diplomatic when kept quiet.

The shuttle was a forty-seat model and was almost full, but Luke had a row to himself. The other passengers crowded away from him. He filled the time by enjoying the shuttle's light snack of local tori nuts and lirekux fruit juice. Both had the same pleasantly sweet undertone he had noticed in the water.

Through the porthole, Luke watched the land around Kamex spaceport grow detailed. The area around the port was classified as desert, but it looked nothing like Tatooine. There were lots of things growing down there, scrub brush maybe, but plantlife nonetheless. He wondered if the sweet taste were part of the desert ecology.

When Luke left the climate-controlled shuttle terminal building, the desert heat slammed into him, flash-drying his eyes and nostrils. His face pinched into the old familiar squint of a Tatooine moisture farmer. The blinding glare, the sand grit in the wind, the instant sweat instantly evaporating, all combined to bring one startling word to Luke's mind: home.

"My home is Yavin 4," he told himself.

In Kamex he transferred to ground transport for Edrus. There were several hassles with soldiers on the way, and more when he got to Leia's hotel, but his identi-chit cleared them up. He was glad to know the Governtists were keeping the Sith well contained during Leia's visit.

Sith-ta had a definite Dark Side aura about it, unsurprisingly. It did not seem intrusive to him, but perhaps that was because his mind was so strong. Leia was not a Jedi yet, and Luke was a Master. Maybe that was why it affected her more.

Leia was not yet at her hotel when he arrived. She was scheduled to be touring a college of mining sciences right then, so Luke settled in to wait. He opened his carry bag and clipped his lightsaber to his belt. He put away his cape and shirt, leaving him in black pants and an undershirt of indeterminate color. Luke studied himself in the gilt-edged mirror. He no longer looked like a Sith. Well, maybe a little bit. Mostly around the eyes. Those eyes had seen too much.

"Stop that," he told himself. "I guess this place is getting on my nerves."

He studied Leia's schedule and saw that when she returned, they would have an hour for dinner. He looked through the hotel's room service menu, dishes displayed in rotating 3D on the holoprojector, and ordered for both of them.

There was a bowl of candy on the table. The green ones looked quite tempting, but he did not want to ruin his appetite. Perhaps later.

When Leia returned, she embraced Luke. "At last! I'm so relieved you're here."  
While the ate dinner, Leia filled him in on what had been happening. "So, the talks aren't progressing. My aides have turned into harridans. They do nothing but bicker. Sometimes I just want to throttle them. And I tried once. That's when I called you."

"Similar problems seem to be cropping up on the cruiser. I think you're right, it is this place."

"I've done the excercises you taught me, but nothing works."

"I know. I'll teach you new ones. And at least consider leaving."

"I am considering it. But let's try the new exercises first. If we can salvage these talks, we should. I don't know how the locals manage."

"Doubtless they're used to it."

On the other side of the planet, a turf war raged in the Sithtown of Rkin. Laser blasts set the trees alight. Blood ran in the street. Lord Keshut stood on top of an overturned groundcar, focusing energies through his body beyond anything his enemies had ever seen.

The air roared like a hunting vel, fanning the fires that leaped from tree to tree to rooftop. "I will burn it all! Unless you surrender!"

His opponent tried one last gambit. "Alright, you win!" The younger Lord came out from behind a burning building. He raised his hands, but then extended them and turned the gesture into an attack. Lightning flashed from his fingertips.

Lord Keshut laughed and shot Force-lightning back. The electricity that surged between them was only a distraction from their mental battle as each sought a chink in his enemy's shields. Keshut found the thin place in his opponent's armor and thrust a mental hand within. "You are mine!" Keshut pulled, and his rival Lord died writhing. The lightning stopped.

Keshut hopped off the overturned groundcar and walked over to his opponent. "Where have you gone, Deelvar?" Lord Keshut swung his head back and forth, as if searching for an elusive scent. Then he smiled, his ravaged flesh drawn back over brown, stubby teeth. "Ah. How fortunate you have chosen such an easily transportable receptacle."

He reached down and pulled a cast gold amulet from Lord Deelvar's neck, and put it in his pocket. Now all that remained was to clean up the mess. Keshut closed his eyes and released his true power. The wind grew hot and moist, and thunder rolled. Clouds formed above the village, and an out-of-season monsoon dumped water on the fires all around.

Lord Keshut slumped. The Force consumed more of his body every time he used it. He had grown too powerful for his own good. It was time to visit the vurgh.

He walked only as far as his groundcar. His gang left cover, putting their weapons away. He instructed his lieutenant to drive him to Jux's.

She put the groundcar in motion. "I don't trust that vurgh, my Lord. You know what he thinks of his own talent."

"Yes, I know. So he thinks it's unfair that someone else's gift is the mark of a Lord. If he didn't hate me, he couldn't heal me, could he?"

"If you say so, my Lord."

The home of Dokhon Jux was as elaborate as any Sith's could be, and not risk arrest for wealth. Every surface was carved, both the wood and the stone.

"Help me," Keshut ordered.

His lieutenant floated him out of the groundcar and into Jux's. She deposited hm on the embroidered silk daybed.

Jux came down the stairs with a strange light in his eyes. He was a tall, fit man of middle years, wearing his black bodysuit skin-tight to show off his bulging muscles, a product of his healer's craft. He turned to the woman. "Leave us."

Her face tightened, but she turned and left. A vurgh could not be contradicted in the practice of his art.

Jux sat down on the edge of the red silk daybed. "I have been expecting you. This time you are dying, Lord Keshut. Truly dying. Do you wish to live, in your flesh? Do you disdain the fate of your conquests?"

"You know that I do."

"The price will be high this time, my Lord. I want your secret. Where do you keep your treasure-trove of the lost? How do you control them? Tell me and you will live. I have looked forward to this day for a long time."

Leia breezed into her day suite at the S K complaining loudly. "You'd think they'd realize I have seen a spaceport before! This so called tour was an insult!"

"That's just this place talking," Luke said. "Let's do this morning's exercise again."

She flopped into a chair. "It didn't work this morning, why should it work now? You're a big help!"

"You aren't working at it!" Luke snapped. He sounded much like the younger self who had often whined about moisture farming.

Leia fidgeted with the edge of her blue and gold skirt. "Look at you. Pacing around like a vornskr on the hunt. Maybe you're the one who's not working hard enough!"

"I'm trying!" This time it was a full blown whine.

" 'Trying' ?"

Luke held up his hands in surrender. He blew air out through his nose, stilling his mind. "Alright, alright. We both need to calm down. Let's do the Meditation on the Void."

Leia nodded, attempting to throw off her irritation. Absently, she picked up a snack from the ubiquitous bowl of candy.

Luke sat down and took a candy also. There was no reason a Jedi could not eat and meditate at the same time. "The void is nothing," he began. "No substance, no energy. No thought, no passion."

Downstairs, Tal and Dije took clean refreshment with the rest of the chorus. "Do you feel it?" whispered Dije. "The second presence?"

Tal nodded, whispering back, "I think it's as strong as your uncle. Maybe even stronger."

"It's Skywalker. Has to be."

"Here?"

"Who else could it be?"

"What bright luck!"

The two of them drifted away from the other chorus members. Tal and Dije had large pink flowers in their hands, and the hoods of their brown robes were drawn up. In case of errant breezes, the two also had brown strips of cloth tied on as headbands, to conceal their Sith tattoos.

"But I'm feeling flashes of anger from them both," said Tal. "And it's growing. It couldn't be Skywalker."

"Sure it could," countered Dije. "You know they don't print tourist brochures about angasine."

"Darkness!" hissed Tal. "Maybe we'd better find a way to warn them and come back later."

"No. We have to help them. Now. While we can."

"Go up there like we planned? Dije, I don't want to meet a mad Jedi Master."

"I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

Tal and Dije avoided the guard by the lift tube by taking the stairs. They did not dare levitate up, because there might be security monitors. They climbed, then paused on the landing to catch their breath.

"Warn first, or calm first?" asked Tal. He did not consider asking for apprenticeship first, not with the Master in his current mood.

Dije did not answer. She knew Tal was just thinking out loud. She let him do the planning.

"We'll go in singing," Tal decided. "A pair of singing Fruitioner missionaries won't look like a threat to the guards they're bound to have watching."

They rested a while, then linked hands, linked minds, and pushed open the door onto the corridor, and began to sing. They walked slowly, hand in hand and flowers in the other two, smiling and singing. The guard near the lift tube glanced at them, and shrugged them off as harmless, and Tal and Dije reveled in the freedom accorded to pacifists. They walked right up to Leia's door and knocked on it.

A blond man in a Sith jumpsuit answered the door. He radiated power and fury.

Tal and Dije, still singing the calming song, stepped inside without waiting for the blond man to get out of the way. They had to get out of earshot of the guard.

The blond Sith shouted, "I didn't order musicians from room service!"

Leia, resplendent in her blue and gold gown, tossed a bowl of the jewel-like candy at the two intruders. "Boo! Boo! Offstage!" She was flushed with anger.

Tal and Dije stared at the scattered angasine concentrate candy. Tal's mind screamed his fear at Dije through their link. *We're in danger! Let's get out of here!* He missed a note.

Dije would not turn aside. Her unshaken resolve bolstered Tal, and he resumed the song. "Be calm with me," they sang. "Be still with me."

Tal felt Dije drop her shields, and he did the same, trusting her instincts. The two young Sith immediately felt the depth of the angasine-induced darkness roiling through the siblings. The dark wrapped around them like Sith cloaks drawn in against the wind.

To Dije it seemed Luke and Leia fought the same battle she had found so often, to tear aside the curtain of darkness and win through to the light. She formed an image of the portal in her mind and held it within her, a window whose shade she had worked so hard to learn to raise.

She reached for the unfamiliar mind, huge and strong, that pulsed in hate behind the Jedi's eyes. She held out her vision of the window unshuttering, the door unlocking, the buttery sunlight pouring through. She had taken Tal through to the light on the very second time she ever touched the light side; she knew she could do this. She knew the Force wanted her to do this.

The mind she touched recoiled at first, then pushed at her bitterly, and Dije was falling through darkness, a long cylindrical tunnel echoing with mad laughter, or was it screams of pain?

But there was no terror for her in visions of the Dark Side. It was only a rutted road to her, smelling of home and mother. Dije did not falter. She kept her portal to the light side open.

Suddenly the powerful mind stopped hating at her and went through the portal, taking her and Tal with him. The two Sith had felt nothing like it. It was as if they had been watching a fire in an imperfect mirror, and then found themselves dancing on the coals. For a moment they touched the light the way a Jedi Master does.

As one, the three reached for Leia, to include her in the light. But she flinched from them, frightened. She locked wall above wall around her mind. Dije and Tal were thrown out of touch with Luke and each other by the power of Leia's terror.

Seeing the room through normal eyes again, Dije and Tal saw Leia's face twist in anger and fear.

"Get out!" Leia shrieked. An icy wind blew out the room's windows from the inside. Dije's hood fluttered down, and for a moment she was afraid her tattoo would be revealed, but then she saw Tal's headband and was reassured.

"Leia, no!" Luke called against the wind. "Don't!"

Leia gestured. A Force punch hit Tal and Dije and pushed them out the broken window.

Tal kept singing, but Dije panicked, falling. Through the last fading vestige of her link to Skywalker, she pushed her warning: *Don't drink the water or eat the food, especially the candy!*

That was all she had time for. She saw Tal above her, floating down like a box from a freighter. Dije closed her eyes and reached again for the light, finding the pattern, slowing her descent. It seemed an eerie parallel with her Sith initiation.

She was calm, still. A leaf on the wind.

Then a blaster bolt sizzled past her ear. Her eyes snapped open. The soldiers on the hotel grounds were shooting at them.

Tal and Dije tumbled in the air, avoiding the shots. They hit the ground running. Their brown choir robes flapped around their legs.

They gathered their robes in their hands and ran for the street. Singing.

Tal and Dije felt the Force flow through them as never before. They dodged blaster bolts from Governtist soldiers who were themselves Force-strong. The two youths dashed around corners and through buildings, following a maze-pattern clear to their Force senses. They ran up a stair well, onto a roof, leaped to another, and heard a soldier splat to the street behind them trying to duplicate the feat.

Dije stopped and looked back, but Tal grabbed her hand and pulled her along with him. He kicked open a grating and they dropped into a lift tube shaft, and strolled out at the bottom. They got into a landspeeder taxi that seemed placed there by the divine intervention of some music-loving Fruitioner god. They rode to a restaurant near the Sith dockworkers' barracks, shucked out of their robes in the refresher stations, and walked out the back door into an alley. They paused.

"That man died," said Dije.

"He was the one who jumped," said Tal, distracted, reaching out with his feelings to see if anyone was still pursuing them. "We didn't push him."

"It's not that simple!" Dije's eyes flashed fire for an instant.

"We were following the light."

"Tal, that just makes it worse. What kind of goodness can be used to kill?"

"Dije, if we're going to do this, we'll probably end up killing people on purpose. Or didn't you notice they were both wearing lightsabers?"

"They were?" Her eyes widened.

He nodded. "The stuff of nightmares."

"But that's a killing weapon! Surely they must've abandoned those archaic things when better weapons came along, like blasters, that can be set on stun."

"No, those were definitely lightsabers. I've seen pictures. And here I thought you were just fearless."

"Oh, darkness, Tal! We killed a man today."

"We did not. He accidentally killed himself. But someday we might have to kill. Do you still want to be a Jedi? I do."

"Yes."

"Then we'll have to work for passage like we first thought. We won't be able to get close to Skywalker again here. The Governtists'll be sure to tighten security after this."

Dije nodded. "No easy road for us, Tal."

"No easy road."

Luke watched in horror as his benefactors fell out the window. He ran to the broken window and looked out. The two brown-robed Jedi fell through a web of blaster fire and raced away, safe.

The typhoon of Leia's anger died. She crossed the room and stood at his shoulder. "Luke—"

"They told me it's in the food, the water. You were half right, Leia. It is this place, in a way." His voice was calm despite the angasine still pounding in his blood.

"I—used the Dark Side." Leia was shaking, partly in self-loathing and partly in her attempt to contain her drug-fueled anger.

"I felt it. You'll be alright once you're away from here. We both will."

"There will be no more talks," Leia decided. Her voice was hard. "This world must not become easy for our citizens to visit. There will be no trade agreement."

"I couldn't agree more," said Luke. Although his voice stayed calm, he too still felt the effects of the angasine. At his sides, he held his fingers straight and stiff to keep them from balling into fists. "If everything edible on this planet creates Dark Side emotions, it's no wonder the Sith arose here. And it's no place for New Republic merchants. Or for us. Let's leave at once."

Still trembling a little with anger, Leia said, "I'll meet with Governtor Avus and—"

"Leia, you and I both need to leave this place before we turn. Wherever those two Jedi came from, I don't think we should count on them showing up in the nick of time again."

She shivered. "You're right." She went to the comm and issued an order recalling her assistants and canceling the talks. Anger still throbbed inside her like a second, rotten heart. She wanted to cut it out. "Oh! I can't stand this!"

"Let's see if we can detoxify ourselves, now that we know it's a poison."

"I can't concentrate!"

"Just do a relaxing exercise. I'll do the cleansing. I'm not as good at this as Cilghal, but I sure I can take the edge off."

Still shaking inside and out, Leia sat stiffly amid the ruins of the suite.

Half a day later, peppered with the profuse apologies of the Governtists for the security breach, the New Republic cruiser Liberator departed Sith-ta local space. The water and food taken onboard was purged at Leia's orders. She told the Captain to put in at the next system, Msha, for emergency resupply.

As the stars out the viewport turned to streaks, Leia commented to Luke, "It seems bad luck follows the name Liberator." With the drug mostly gone from her bloodstream, she sounded once more like a princess. "At least this one hasn't crashed into any planets."

"I still have a bad feeling about this voyage," said Luke. "This isn't over yet."


	2. Chapter 2

Sith 2:

Dark Lady of the Sith

Fanfic by Erin Lale

In the sundrenched afternoon, the air cooling unit wheezing in the window barely brought the room to a habitable temperature. The broken pavement outside was hot enough to burn even native insect life, which therefore was nocturnal.

Dije came in through the door and just stood there a moment, enjoying the cooler air. Then she came in and thunked her heavy purse down on the chipped table. She took out an assortment of metals, computer parts, jewelry, fuel vouchers, official currency – very little of that—travel coupons, and stolen document blanks.

"No problems," she reported to her uncle.

He nodded. "Feel free to lounge, my niece."

She did. Dije knew her Lord's words for an order, not an invitation. Another member of his organization had to value the noncurrency items and total the receipts before the collector could leave. The bookkeeper was undoubtedly on his way.

Dije remembered what had happened to the man her uncle had caught skimming. She had been only six then, but Sith families did not protect their children from seeing violence.

She remembered the man's eye floating free of its socket, her uncle's fine control of the Force levitating the eye backward until it peered into the hole it had left, the optic nerve still attached so the man could still see. Lord Thodvexer had laughed and asked, "Do you see any brains in there? I don't." That man had thought he could lie to a Dark Lord and not get caught.

Dije reached for calm. She closed her eyes and pretended to laziness, and let her mind flow through the familiar exercise of the song. She had nothing to worry about; she wasn't skimming, after all. Only plotting to betray her race.

"I might have another spy job for you," Lord Thodvexer said. "You did quite well with the other one."

Dije sat up and opened her eyes. "Thanks, Uncle Thodvexer."

Thodvexer continued, "I never expected you to be able to get close enough to a visiting offworld ruler to do a mindtouch evaluation. You have quite a talent for spying, it seems. And a lot of initiative." There was a hint of something behind his words that was cold and dangerous. It prickled Dije's scalp. But she had gotten through the report on her activities during the quarantine without Thodvexer saying anything to indicate continued suspicion about Dije's Jedi sympathies.

Dije knew she could not allow herself to react to this topic, or her fear would give her away. She held light and song behind her eyes. "Who do you want spied on?"

"A certain soldier who patrols an area of the port. I suspect him of helping a rival of mine."

Dije nodded. "If it's true, do you want him recruited or snitched on?"

Thodvexer grinned. He looked like a skull. "You are intelligence, my niece. When you are out in space, remember, there will always be a place for you by my side." That was as close as he ever came to expressing familial love.

"Thanks, Uncle Thodvexer. I'll remember."

"Recruit the Governtist, if possible. If not…" The Dark Lord shrugged, as if to say, either way I win.

"Want me to head out today?"

"Tomorrow. Arrive in his area in midmorning. Observe him from the Available Guards corner across from the Shrunken Head Cantina. If he is working for Sidhuxin, he should make contact with a grey-haired Sith man with a small knife scar on his left hand. That will be Hurn."

Dije smiled. "Perfect. And if someone really comes by and wants to hire me, I can make the deal for when my Service is up."

"A cover that is real is so much the better," Thodvexer said.

The cruiser Liberator orbited Msha. The Corellian-built ship was much smaller than its namesake, but was still an imposing presence in the skies of the unaligned world.

The environment of Msha was only marginally within the limits of human tolerance without special equipment. It was a cold, grey rock with a thin atmosphere and disorientingly light gravity. It was also just beyond Corporate space, which made it a convenient trade center for the less than legal.

Leia regarded the grey ball beyond the viewport with a wry smile. "I should've brought Han after all. There would have been an opening for Chief Scoundrel."

Luke joined her at the viewport. "Knowing Han, if he's ever been on Msha, he probably owes somebody down there money."

"It's good to see you have your sense of humor back."

The amusement faded from Luke's face. "It's good to have a lot of things back. It's hard to believe. Almost like a bad dream. Except that there's a very real dent in the wall just outside the bridge."

"Everyone on the ship had the same problem, Luke."

"No. Everyone had the same emotion. The problem was very different. My blood runs cold when I think a drug could do that to me."

Softly, Leia said, "To both of us."

"I wonder who those two people in the robes were? And who taught them? The far side of Corporate space would have been a good place for Jedi to hide when the Emperor's Jedi hunters were combing the Empire. There might be a colony somewhere around here. Not on Sith-ta, of course. It must've been pure serendipity they were there when we needed them."

"Let me guess. You're going to look for this colony."

"Yes, I am."

Dije stood on the corner with a knot of other tattooed Sith. The sun beat down on them in their black bodysuits and black fatigues. The all had their hoods up and their capes pulled forward to deflect the worst of it, for the heat of the sun could burn the skin under tight black cloth. One of the Sith kept a cool breeze going by the power of his annoyance at the heat.

They faced the cantina across a wide street. The customers going in and out mostly wore spacer's coveralls. The sign on the door was a white sun, a white paint version of a Sith forehead tattoo. The color reverse meant "No Sith." The inn's patrons did not appreciate the presence of telepaths. Dije imagined shady deals going down inside.

Keeping Sith out of the bar also excluded most bodyguards, but the spacers who frequented this crumbling dockside cantina were not the kind who had bodyguards. It was an irony of the sweetest kind, Dije reflected, that the same Sith Guard who was not allowed into a dingy spaceport bar on his homeworld was perfectly welcome in the poshest of offworld resorts, where everyone who was anyone had bodyguards.

Dije watched the aliens go by, bipeds and tripeds and drifting winged no-peds. A gaggle of sweating Fruitioner missionaries wandered past, their flowers mummified in the hot, dry air.

A water seller rolled his cart up to the group of Sith, cheerful and unafraid. Whether the merchant was a Governtist or just an ordinary citizen, Sith-ta had ferocious penalties for Sith who tried to influence a non-Sith's mind in a business transaction. He sold a cold jug of water for an outrageous price, but there was no bargaining. Dije felt conspicuous when she paid extra for pure-source, but she wasn't about to drink tapwater.

The bottle had a picture of a mountain on it, so Dije figured it was probably supposed to be mountain spring water. Anyway, it had the Fruitioner seal, a pink flower over the cap, and that was what counted. She broke the seal and guzzled the deliciously icy water. She was so intent on enjoying the mineral tang in her parched mouth that she almost missed the contact.

But she noticed the scar on the hand of the grey haired man when he handed over his money to the water seller. Dije noticed there was something concealed between two fingers when he dropped his hand. The transfer was smooth, quiet, and quick.

Dije took another slug of water and watched Hurn through her eyelashes. He waited a moment, then casually put his hands in his pockets.

Dije focused on the water seller, obviously the cutout for her recruitment target. She fixed an image of him in her mind and sent that image to Tal, a few blocks away on another corner.

Her work was done for the day. All she had to do now was stand here. It was Tal's job to track the soldier back to his nest and send the location to Dije. The rest of the plan involved blackmailing the soldier. Dije would not attempt mind control. First, because Governtist soldiers were Force-strong; she and Tal together probably could not overwrite a soldier's mind. If it were that easy, the Sith would still rule Sith-ta. Second, because Dije thought it would be an act of darkness. The Governtists used mind control in the name of law and order and maintaining the peace, but like the Sith they despised, the Governtists used the Dark Side.

Another alien went into the bar. Dije could not identify the species, but he, she, or it looked seedy.

Dije reflected that her uncle had a dual reason for sending her on this spy mission. Of course he wanted the soldier, but he also wanted Dije to hire out doing something that would make her useful to him on her return. The hardbitten spacers hiring guards near this low-life watering hole would not hire ornaments. Thodvexer had combat experience in mind.

A scraggle-bearded old pirate with a row of rings where his eyebrows should be sauntered out of the cantina. His loosely woven, rust-colored shirt was stained with mechanical lubricant, but he wore a green gemstone the size of a fist around his neck on a heavy gold chain, and the blaster riding his hip looked custom-made.

He zeroed in on Dije, the only female in the group, looked her over and walked up to her. "How many do you stand for?"

"Me and one other guy."

"Huh."

"You hiring for a ship?"

"Why, do you need off Sith-ta?"

"Not need, just want," Dije replied. The subtext being, no local trouble, not wanted by the law. Which seemed to be true enough; the soldiers who had chased her must not have identified her.

"Huh. Yeah, a ship. Prison ship. Private contractors. Heading for Msha. It's a one way hire, we don't need guards on the way back. You and your buddy get off at Msha. Pay's in Msha scrip, two pfens each for the run, take or leave it. We leave in 3 weeks. Interested?"

Dije knew Msha was in the right direction, and it was a trade center, sure to have lots of ships coming and going. "Yeah."

"Huh. Alright, you and your friend are hired. Report to Docking Bay 67 in twenty days. Tell 'em Zethro sent you."

"Will do."

That was a stroke of luck. She had only been standing out here one day, and already she had a job. It appeared to be a legitimate one, too. She walked off down the dusty street with a smile on her face. Everything was going perfectly.

Away from the breeze provided by her fellow Sith, the desert's heat pressed down until Dije felt two feet tall. She called light. She thought of stillness, stillness down to the molecular level. She stilled the air trapped under her cape and hood, calmer, quieter, unmoving. Her cape went stiff with frost.

Dije smiled. It was getting easier to summon the light side of the Force with practice. She imagined herself as a pocket knife. When it's new, the mechanism that opens it sticks a bit, but it loosens with use.

Or perhaps, she could find the light more reliably now because of the white-hot vision of the Force she had seen through Skywalker's eyes. She could see that glorious expanse of all-light now, although she could not grasp more than a handful of it. She was sure that wielding more of its power would come with time, practice, and patience.

"Hey, Sithy, Sithy!" Mens' laughter interrupted her train of thought. Three men, she saw. She pretended to ignore them.

They had to be Governtist soldiers, despite their civilian clothes. No one but a Governtist would dare taunt a tattooed Sith, and no Governtist but a soldier would get drunk in this part of town.

"Hey Herri, whatcha call a Sith girl who just met the men a' the 54th?"

"Dunno, Kadwan."

"Mommy!" The men laughed harshly, their faces as cruel as any group of celebrating Sith.

Dije quickened her steps. Fear rose in her. Without peace, the light deserted her. Her gut knotted up. The soldiers were following her. Iron fear in her mouth brought the darkness, the power like a vast cesspool, its sluicegates under her hands.

No, she told it. Go away. I am calm. I am light. I am stone.

The words rang hollow in her mind as evil laughter pursued her. This is the outrage, Dije thought, that created the Governtists. The unfairness. I will not give in. I will not become like them.

Dije headed for a crowded street, hoping for safety in numbers. The men followed, gaining. She broke into a run; so did they.

To her utter surprise, Dije felt sparks forming at her fingertips. Force-lightning was a power only the Dark Lords possessed. She had no time to wonder how she had grown so powerful so quickly.

She dove into the crowd, ducking between pedestrians, speederbikes, and pushcarts. The drunken soldiers staggered after.

For one heart-stopping moment, something held the corner of her cloak. Then she pulled free and ran flat out for the open back of a cargo skimmer. She leaped, a long impossible leap of fear, and scrambled in among the crates. Then she stood up and made obscene gestures to the soldiers left behind.

"Ha! Dimheads! Jikpluckers! Your mamas sold your brains to the organ bank!" She laughed. The sound of her cackle reminded her uncomfortably of her mother.

Dije settled down between the crates. "That jump was the Dark Side flowing. Well, don't I have a right to a little fear and anger over what almost happened? Other people do. But not me. Not if I mean to leave the darkness behind forever."

In the safety of the moving skimmer, she called light, and it came, deep and strong. "Little while ago I thought I'd gotten really close to the light after the adventure with Skywalker. Yeah, well, you can bet this sort of thing never happens to him."

Dije rode until the skimmer stopped at an intersection. Then she jumped off, hyper-alert. The sunlight was going gold, signaling the lateness of the hour. She needed to meet up with Tal before nightfall.

Her gaze darted from one person to the next, assessing them for weapons, for drunkenness, for the swagger that meant danger. She told herself, at least I didn't use the lightning. I didn't kill those men. Even though they deserved it.

Luke sat at a computer terminal, scrolling through information from an uplink to the library on Msha. The mysterious Jedi colony either did not exist or was well-hidden from public knowledge. Of course, it would have to have kept a low profile in the beginning, but even if the Emperor had sent Jedi hunters way out here, no one had been hunting Jedi for a long time. With the amount of information he had sifted through, if the colony existed, something would have tweaked his Force-awareness by now.

He linked over to another library, at a small university. If the colony was a wild vornskr chase, maybe he could still turn up something interesting. Old writings, perhaps.

The listing for works on the topic of Jedi took up seven screens. He smiled. He would have to visit this university. These listings were for harcopy books, but downloadable information. He entered a request to study the collection and the received the automated reply listing hours and directions, and was riveted: it was called the Callista Collection.

Old embers stirred in his heart: old love, old pain, old promises, new hope. Were his two guardian angels Callista's students? Was Callista here, on Msha? He could not sense her presence, but if were there, surely he could sense her from the planet's surface.

"Callista."

In the relative cool of the morning, Tal and Dije tracked the water seller. One of them stayed out of sight on a parallel street, and they stayed in telepathic contact with each other. Tailing the seller was all too easy, and Dije grew bored and started to ruminate on recent events.

The remembered crackle at her fingertips haunted her. Most of the rare Force talents ran in families, so the lightning was probably an inherited trait. Even so, it gnawed at her. The power of the Dark Lords. If anyone saw her use it, she would be a Dark Lady, at the age of fourteen. She would get a cheek tattoo bracketing her mouth, and her uncle would probably kill her as a rival for power. Unless, of course, she killed him. Just how powerful had she become, in that moment when she saw the Force through the eyes of a Jedi Master? Of course, the idea of fighting Uncle Thodvexer scared her, so if she killed him it would be with the Dark Side. She felt a little sick.

Eventually the merchant made contact with the soldier, and Dije and Tal switched to stalking him. They caught up with him in front of a piercing parlor. Once, this spy stuff would have made her feel deliciously adult. Now she found it distasteful.

"Someone's unhappy with you," said Tal.

From behind the soldier, Dije added, "Someone other than your wife."

The soldier stepped back to get them both in front of him. "Be off, Sithspawn, or I'll think of something to arrest you for."

"Now is that any way to talk to your boss's neighbors?" Tal asked. "Go ahead. We'll tell them about Hurn. And Hurn will tell them about you."

The soldier caved in sourly, "What do you want?"

Dije said, "Tell us how you can be of service to your new master."

Luke entered the Hwresten Library. He was careful to take small steps in the light gravity. The Library was a glass and stone monument to interspecies architecture, built on a circular plan with oddly-pitched half-roofs, triangular corners, and random gables sprouting everywhere. The lift tube was just a hole in the floor with an uncontained breeze wafting through.

Luke rode the current up to the third floor and entered the twelve-sided red glass polygon that housed the Callista Collection. He found the bookcase with the bound books on the Jedi, and pulled out a book. The cover was real leather, though made from the hide of what creature, he did not know. The smell of old paper puffed out when he opened it and read the title page. "On the Jedi, theire Peculiar Customs and Fyghting Styles, by Lord Tanar Vakkeksh." The book had evidently been published on Sith-ta. Luke could make nothing of the date, but it was obviously very old.

He chose another volume, "Myths of the Jedi, by Zexta Thon." He opened it at random and read:

"Then the good little boy ran all the way home, but the bad little boy was afraid his poppa would spank him, so he climbed up a tree to wait for the evil man to pass by. But the bad little boy still smelled of the thxa he had stolen, so the evil man smelled him and looked up. The evil man took out his hissing lightsword and cut down the tree. He caught the bad little boy and ate him all up."

Luke surveyed the rest of the books, which all appeared to have been written by Sith.

A cold rock, the twin to Msha, formed in the pit of Luke's stomach. "I came here hoping to find Callista. Now I hope she has nothing to do with this."

Logic told him that these books were so old, they must date from before the Blockade. They had probably been in this university's library the whole time.

But he imagined Callista on Sith-ta, drinking the water, eating the food. Growing uncontrollably angry, until the day her latent Force powers burst out, dark. Once he would not have cared if she turned, as long as she came back to him. That was a long time ago.

Luke went to a computer, thankfully of standard design. The Callista Collection had been so named because it was endowed by a CSA corporation of the same name. A cruise ship line. Which had been named Callista Tours for three hundred years.

Luke sighed. He could not decide if it was in relief or disappointment.

He was on his way back to the port to return to the ship when he got the tingling feeling someone was watching him. There were a lot of people on the pedestrian walkway. His attention was drawn to a nondescript humanoid trying to make himself inconspicuous by a map post. Luke considered confronting him, but felt no particular danger from him. He was probably just a curiosity seeker, or possibly a paparazzo. The humanoid did not follow him, so Luke shrugged it off and continued to the port.

He did not notice the second spy whose attention had been camouflaged by his partner's. The second man was a young, trim human with a distinctly military bearing, straight as a laser bolt and crisp as a parade-ground salute. The man shut off the recording circuit in the macrobinoculars as the Jedi Master turned the corner. The double observer method had worked as well on Skywalker as it worked on Sith Guards.

The Imperial Intelligence officer lowered the macrobinoculars and allowed a small wrinkle of satisfaction to appear at the corners of his iron grey eyes. His superiors would be pleased. Now he had to keep the rebel ship from leaving Msha.

Dije and Tal reported to the prison ship Exporter with one large duffel apiece. As they waited in line by the ramp with the other Guards and crew, Dije asked Tal, "Sure we shouldn't have brought more stuff? Only three changes of clothes, and one a disguise." She referred to the set of electric-colored Antithesis dungarees and headbands.

"I'm sure. Who knows what Msha is going to be like? We may have to do some running, or even fighting. We may not be able to spare any concentration for Force-dragging our belongings behind us."

Right now their duffels were rather heavy, because they also contained pure-source food and water for the trip. The ship's stores would probably be ordinary cheap food from the port, and would be full of angasine.

The youths' enthusiasm for leaving Sith-ta was not at all damped by their first look at the Exporter's shabby interior. The grime and dust that clung to everything was not a step down from Sithtown. They stowed their stuff in their respective gender's barracks and settled into the Guards' wardroom to listen to the orientation lecture, both trying to suppress childish grins.

Dije was not alarmed when Supervisor Melefik, the Governtist in charge of the ship's Sith Guards, leaned forward and growled, "Now you women, listen up. You're not only here to keep the female cargo under control. You're also here to protect the miserable little rinits from the rest of the crew. I want them to arrive on Msha unused."

Dije was pleased with the idea of herself as a protector of virgins. She did not stop to think about why there should be a lot of virgins on a prison ship until the next ship-day, when the prisoners came stumbling and sniffling down the corridor of the Women's Side into their group cells.

Dije held interior duty, meaning she was supposed to get the prisoners settled into their cells as they came in. Twenty girls went in each cell, ten cells in all. There was to be no physical fighting between prisoners. Five women Sith Guards worked as a team, taking over from the exterior duty guards as the prisoners were herded into the corridor.

Dije felt sick. But there was no way she could just leave, not under the eyes of the other Sith, and not without Tal. And she really, really wanted to get off the planet and on her way.

She was still assigning bunks to the last load when a rumbling in the deck signaled preparation for liftoff.

A tone sounded and the Guards got into acceleration chairs just outside the cells. One of the Sith women, a greyhaired pirhana with wrinkles so deep her tattoo was distorted, addressed the girls in the cells, "Lay down in your bunks. The ship's taking off. And dry up that crying."

Dije rode out the liftoff and the transition to hyperspace looking through the bars at two hundred terrified girls, all younger than herself. Either the common people of Sith-tal had some really serious juvenile delinquents, or…

Blind rage rose up inside her. Prison ship, hell. Sending criminals to a colony, my fat warts. She was going to find Zethro the lying spitface and craft Uncle Thodvexer a new chinrest for his viol out of Zethro's skull. While Zethro was still alive.

Dije choked down that impulse and stewed silently. She reached for calm, but it would not come. She could not let go of her anger. All she could do was hold herself in, and hope no one provoked her. She felt the pressure against her thighs of the static charge in her hands.

Dije Kun, Dark Lady of the Sith. The power sang to her, promising strength enough o take the ship and free the children. She was not strong enough in the light, but in the darkness, oh in the darkness, she had the power of the Dark Lords in the palm of her hand.

Go away, she told it. I didn't go to space to become a Governtist.

At last her shift was over. The next shift was only two Guards; five was for loading. Dije's hands still crackled with unspent electricity as she made her way to the wardroom. Tal was already there, and she gestured him over with her chin. They sat on a padded bench bolted to the floor.

Dije whispered, "This is a slave ship."

He blinked. "Why do you say that?"

"What did the 'criminals' in your section look like?" she asked in a more normal tone.

"Oh—strong, mostly. Healthy. Nobody really old. Common laborers, looked like. Why?"

Dije shrugged. Link with me.

I'm here. What is it?

The Women's Side is full of little kids.

Weird.

We've got to do something, Tal.

Do what?

I don't know! You're the practical one!

OK, if you want practical, here's practical: could you fly this ship?

No.

Me neither. And even if we could, wouldn't you have problem with killing the crew and Guards?

We wouldn't have to kill them. Look. Dije opened her hands enough to show Tal the sparks inside. I could intimidate the other Sith to follow me and--

No. That's what we're trying to leave behind.

I know, but those kids!

Dije, think: could you keep control of the other Sith if you let the slaves go and let the officers live?

No. But we have to do something.

Not here, not now. Wait. The interstellar slave trade is illegal in Corporate space. When we reach Msha, there are bound to be undercover Espos there. We'll turn informer.

Dije nodded, slumping in relief and exhaustion. But what if we can't find one?

Then we'll come back as Jedi and break up the slave ring with official backing.

Corporal Nigh of the Liberator wiped foam from his smiling face. "That is one good Gizer ale." The brew was as dark as the bar it was served in, and considerably more pleasant than the other patrons.

A blue fuzzy alien ankled up to his table. "That's my seat."

"Well, here, let me buy you a drink, then."

The alien knocked Nigh's table over. That was enough for Nigh. He had been spoiling for a fight ever since the last port of call, where nobody got any leave.

Nigh jumped up and kicked the blue alien. The whole bar erupted in fists and flying glassware. Nigh soon found himself pounding on random spacers.

He woke up in the stench of the local lockup with bloody fists and a knot on the back of his head. "Aw, Sithspit."

Dije sat on her bunk and drank from a flask. The other women probably thought it was whiskey, and that was fine with Dije. She was very glad she'd brought all the food she needed, because she had just gotten a look at the ship's galley. The cook was a shaggy alien who shed fur all over his workspace.

The thirtyish woman in the bunk above her leaned down. "Share some of that?"

Dije snarled, "Get your own."

"Better be careful," the woman warned in mock cheerfulness. "Your ears are so pretty, I might want one for my collection."

Dije knew the game and threat and counterthreat well. It didn't mean anything, unless one played poorly. "You be careful. I collect ovaries."

The mousy blonde laughed. She knew Dije had no such collection. Her own string of ears was quite real, though. The leathery bits were hung on the metal bedpost.

"Where are they, then?" asked the dust blonde.

"Never said I dried them." Dije grinned and raised the flask in salute, and tossed off a hearty swallow.

"Ugh." The blonde made a face. There were some things even the Sith thought were evil. Uncle Thodvexer had played with an ear at her party, but even he would not actually have eaten it.

The ear-collecting woman probably did not believe Dije's claim of being a cannibal, but it did not matter. Dije had played the game well, passed the test. She had earned the right to keep her belongings to herself, and was no longer in danger of having her Fruitioner food supply discovered.

Fil Imeggion switched off his comconsole and rubbed his eyes. This diplomatic mission to Sith-ta had run his crew ragged. He supposed he should not be too surprised one of them had broken up the Msha docks. He straightened his uniform and signaled the President's comm.

"Yes, Captain?"

"We have a slight delay, Madame President."

"Aren't we almost finished loading?"

"Yes, the resupply is going fine. A crewman has been arrested on Msha for assault, and I'm making no headway with the Msha legal system, such as it is. They say he's already been sentenced to servitude."

Leia sighed. "Is he guilty?"

The captain shrugged. "There are no trial records. He was in their custody about two hours when he was sentenced. Who knows? They probably don't."

"Lovely. So how long is the sentence of hard labor?"

"Madame President, 'servitude' means they plan to sell him at auction. Msha isn't in the Corporate Sector. Slavery is legal here."

"What?" Leia thought fast. "Well, perhaps we can buy him back."

"That would probably work. Unfortunately, it would break a lot of regulations." The Captain grimaced. When he had ascended to command rank, during the Rebellion, there had been fewer regulations.

"I'll authorize it, if nothing else works," Leia assured him. "Or buy him myself, if the regs don't allow me to authorize you to do it. But we'll try diplomacy first. Arrange for me to speak with someone in authority on Msha."

"Thank you, Madame President."

Dije went off-shift on the third day out with sparks crawling on her hands. She went to the wardroom and found Tal. "Can't stand it," she whispered. "Managed a little calm for a while—think I even muffled the girls' fear, a little. But I lost the light. Tal, look at my hands." She turned them palm-up, but carefully kept her fingers curled inward to keep the lightning from escaping. Electric discharge flashed fitfully all along her hands, as if she were a malfunctioning droid. "It won't go away. It's been like that for hours. Tal, I've got to do something."

"Just hold on," he whispered back. Then he linked with her, unafraid of the anger boiling off of her. Hold on for the sakes of all the people we're going to help once we're Jedi.

A sudden touch on her ribs startled her out of the link.

"Hey there, new kid," said a man's voice. "You're not saving it all for your bud here, are you?" He laughed.

It was the laugh of the trio of soldiers at the port; the laugh of the neighborhood Sith torturing the naked man whose only crime was to be caught by a hunting pack of partygoers; it was the imagined laughter of the deal-brokers sending the children of Sith-ta commoners to offworld slavery, and of the foreign perverts, and of the Governtists who shook hands with them over brandy and cigarillos, selling out their subjects for the sake of alien money. It was Uncle Thodvexer stroking the hair of his viol bow like a cat, remembering the things he had done to his enemy. It was the laughter echoing through the long fall into Darkness she had seen in Skywalker's mind.

Dije snapped. The hours spent containing the flower of power had worn her down. Now, like containment failure in a starship's drive, she exploded.

Dije whipped around and showed her hands close to the frizzy beard. Electricity surged back and forth between her hands as she held them palm facing palm.

The man backed up, blue eyes wide.

Dije stood and expanded the distance between her hands. The blinding blue-white surges increased in power, circling and sizzling around her hands.

All talk and movement in the wardroom ceased. Every Sith there knew they were witnessing the birth of the Dark Lady.

Dije fought the urge to turn her fingertips toward the man who has startled her. It would be so easy to send the Force-lightning coursing through his body. All she had to do was turn her fingers toward her target. The electricity arcing back and forth between her outstretched hands was getting to be more than she could handle. It was starting to hurt, and she smelled smoke.

The man sank to his knees, clearly terrified. Although a Sith by definition could survive the storm, nonfatal torture still inspired fear.

Dije reached for calm, but it would not come. The lightning would not dissipate. She realized she would have to ground it out, and looked around desperately for a safe target. The wardroom contained stock-still people, metal furniture, metal decks and walls, lights, a vidscreen—and a sound system, thank the Force. Dije pictured the electrical pathways inside the music system, seeking a place to store the power. There, it was there. Dije turned her fingers and flung the lightning at the entertainment device. It came alive with loud music and flashing lights. The Force-lightning left Dije's hands. The machine stayed on, operating off the power even as it poured white smoke.

Trying not to sound as shaken as she felt, Dije shouted over the music, "Well? What are you waiting for?"

A ragged cheer went up from the Sith in the wardroom. The kneeling man got up, white-faced, with a placating smile fixed on his face. He backed into the crowd while a few people began tentatively clapping.

The mousy blonde from the top bunk yelled, "It's party time! Break out the beer and strobe!"

Prickle-scalped Sith dived for the barracks, some to fetch consumables and other party necessities, others to hide out. There was a fluttering of black capes, and then the sound system exploded.

The ear collector rushed back in with a dark skinned Sith from the southern continent. He had a small, carved wooden box with him. The blonde gushed, "Maikkivex is a tattooist."

The wood-brown man actually bowed. "My Lady, I would be honored if you would permit me to serve you in my art on this, the night of your ennoblement."

Dije blinked away her confusion. She knew the proper response, and made herself say it. "You may serve me."

Dije turned to the blonde. "You, ear-woman, what's your name?"

"Kerruke, my Lady."

Dije smiled. "Kerruke, find me some music."

"My pleasure, my Lady." She dashed away, clearly pleased at being in the Dark Lady's good graces.

The smoke from the juke box collected on the deck like river mist.

Tal appeared at her shoulder. Dije?

I'm here. I'm calm. It's over.

Is it?

I can see it now, Tal. I can intimidate them only as long as I'm a believable Dark Lady. Say the expected things. Do the expected things. These people will party for me but they won't free the slaves for me. It would be a sign of weakness.

Informing is a better way.

Out loud, she said, "Some day you're going to be wrong about something, you know."

"When I am, you'll be there to set me straight. My Lady."

An un-Ladylike giggle escape Dije.

Then a deep woodwind started up and several caped Sith began to sway in time to the music. Someone passed around a bucket of beer.

Dije settled into a padded metal deck chair and gestured Maikkivex to begin the ceremony.

Maikkivex pitched his voice for Dije alone. Only the Lords and the tattooists who served them could hear these words. "From the beginning, have the Dark Lords stood as the hearts of the Sith," he recited as he readied his kit. His brown hands moved deftly over the primitive ink and steel.

"A leader is the soul of her people," intoned the tattooist. "As they owe her obedience, she owes them rule. As they owe her life, she owes them victory. As they owe her strength, she owes them wisdom." It was a formula from another time, a proud time when the Sith reached out to grasp the stars. A time before the Governtists forced their Sith progenitors into little warring enclaves, reducing the princes of nations to mere crime bosses. A time before the Blockade; a time before the Jedi.

"The lefthand pillar is the power of the storm," Maikkivex recited, piercing the skin of her left cheek.

Dije made herself stay still as Maikkivex applied the tattoo in the ancient way. I am stone, she told herself. I am light.

"The righthand pillar is the will to direct it." He drew the ink through her right cheek. "These are the twins that uphold the vault of heaven."

Maikkivex finished the tattoo and knelt. "My Lady, the Sith await their heart."

Now came the public part of the ritual. Dije stood up and addressed the assembled beer-sloshed Sith. "I am Dije Kun, Dark Lady of the Sith. I hold the storm."

How many times had she imagined this moment, since she first felt the sparks stinging her hands? It was a like a dream, or a nightmare.

The celebrants echoed her. "You hold the storm!" They hurrahed and drank beer.

Then the phantom flute changed its tune and the Sith Guards gathered into little mobs and told sadistic jokes in between puffs of strobe and guzzles of suds. One man stood on his head and encouraged his friends to climb up on his feet, and then his hands. He gripped a lit strobe pipe in his teeth and blew smoke rings as he performed his balancing act. Several people gravitated to him and yelled insults at him until his concentration broke and he and his friends came tumbling down.

Dije appropriated a strobe pipe and took a few hits, but it didn't do anything for her. She passed it on.

Most of the partygoers stayed a respectful distance away from her, keeping track of her position out of the corners of their eyes. A few sycophants stuck close by her elbows, offering good off planet whiskey, small games and puzzleboxes for her amusement, and themselves.

Dije looked into their eyes and understood them. She could still take the ship. She knew precisely what kind of orders her fellow Sith would obey: Kill them all and loot the bodies. Or, leave them alive for our pleasure; you may torture them in any way you desire.

Among all the Sith onboard, surely there was one pilot. But what then? Turn pirate? Attack other slave ships. Sell the slaves; pirates don't free their loot. Attack the Sith-ta government. Loot and kill until she was killed in battle, and all her loyal pirates and torturers with her. And she would never become a Jedi. She would never truly know the peace she sought, the forbidden knowledge of the conquerors of her people. Playing the role of pirate captain to the end of her days to keep the obedience of the Sith, how long before she was not faking the dark?

Dije saw her futures clear before her: to conquer the Exporter, slaughter the crew, and become a pirate, feared by all who plied the spaceways, terrible mistress of the dark between the stars. She would take other ships, become an admiral. Challenge the might of the Governtists. All Sith-ta would flock to her banner, and she would break the back of the Governtists and moved the Sith back into the palaces where they belonged. She would take innumerable prize ships, and turn their guns on the remaining Blockade weapons. The Sith would reach for the stars once again, not as mercenaries, but as a united people, united under Dije Kun, Dark Lady of Ladies, Her Imperial Highness, Dije Kun, Queen of the Sith, Empress of the Galaxy.

Not kriffing likely. Oh, if she started down that path, she could become a pirate easily enough. The rest was a lie, a hoarfrost confection spun by the Dark Side to deceive her.

She could reach out and grasp at power, or she could take the harder path, the one with switchbacks and rocks and bends and potholes and inclement weather.

Dije looked at the fear and adoration in the eyes of Kerruke and Maikkivex, and knew which path was hers. Dije Kun, Jedi Knight. Enemy of everyone before her. She was a traitor to her people, yet she was not. She felt it, suddenly: she was the soul of her people, as the old formula said, and that soul was not of the darkness.

There was nothing in the old words of evil. The Sith had once had Lords of Light. Or at least, of twilight. She would bring the light back to her people.

Peace descended on her like clear rain. It filled her and surrounded her. A path burned before her eyes, a zigzag of fire that led to her destiny. She was called to Msha. She had a Purpose there, something larger than herself and the few lives on this ship. Dije smiled.

At the University of Saleel on Msha, a maintenance droid rolled up to the red glass wall with the shiny new sign that read Callista Collection. The robot removed the sign, exposing the scratched, time-weathered sign beneath, which said Halcyon Collection. The droid deposited the new sign in the trash chute.

On the next floor down, a human librarian restored the original information in the database, and deleted the spurious reference to the Callista Corporation. He did not know why the iron eyed man had wanted the collection renamed for a few days, but the donation had been substantial.

Leia was not happy with the delay on Msha. She paced her quarters on the cruiser, thinking of all the work backlogging for her back on Coruscant.

Her door buzzer sounded. She could feel Luke's presence out in the corridor. She crossed to her desk and flicked the button to open the door. Luke stepped in, dressed in a pilot's jumpsuit. He had been logging some flight time in the cruiser's X-wings.

Leia accused, "I hope you didn't drop by to tell me you sensed my impatience or some such thing."

"Not at all. The Captain said I might need to go back down to Msha, and you had the details."

"Oh. Right." Leia sat down and gestured Luke into a seat near the desk. "The Msha government won't give the corporal back to us, but they will hand him over to 'an agent of justice' as they put it. You."

"Oh, good." Despite his words, Luke shifted uncomfortably. He was not feeling much like the paragon of virtue that a Jedi was expected to be.

"There's going to be some kind of ceremony. They've scheduled it for three days from now."

"Alright. I'll be glad to be on our way. The sooner we put a few thousand light-years between us and Sith-ta the better." Luke looked away.

Leia lowered her voice. "You're thinking about what happened on the planet."

Luke nodded. "Leia, I've been through so much, and then to be brought so close to the Dark Side by a food additive. It doesn't seem—right. Fair. Something."

"I second that," Leia said. "I'm going to have this whole incident classified. I don't want any of our enemies to find out about the existence of angasine. They could destabilize the New Republic if they dropped it in our worlds' water supplies. I don't see how the Governtists keep their population from constant riot."

"They manage to keep the Sith under control, the ordinary people must be easy compared to that."

Leia handed him a handcomp. "Here are the details of the ceremony. So, 'agent of justice', what justice will you be giving the corporal?"

"The scare he must be having right now is enough for his next two crimes too."

"Oh brother. Don't say that at the ceremony!"

"Of course not."

Light filled Dije. Light touched the heart of each child and teen girl coming down the ramp, stilling their terror. It was not much, but at least she could do this for them, that they could have a respite from fear for a little while. She had considered trying to mark them in the force with some sigil she could recognize them with, but the other Sith would see it too. It saddened her that she could do so little for them, but some day she would be a Jedi, and then she could right wrongs and fight evildoers.

The unusually cooperative slaves boarded ground transports. Dije tromped back up the echoing metal ramp for her pay, her duffel, and her friend.

She waited for Tal in the wardroom, tapping her feet. Finally he came in, and she took his elbow and brought him to the front of the pay line. Nobody objected; she was a Dark Lady.

There's no time to waste, Tal. Something's happening on Msha, and we've got to be there.

Another of your Force directions?

Yeah. C'mon.

They double-timed off the Exporter with their substantially lighter duffels slung under their capes, lending them a hunchbacked appearance. They pulled their thin desert capes tight against Msha's chill.

The Imperial Intelligence officer watched the route back to Msha's largest spaceport from the "Municipal Center"—really a rented conference hall—where his hired public speakers bored Skywalker. The groundcar with the corporal and several of Liberator's troops passed below the grey Formex building from which the intelligence officer watched.

His commlink beeped and he raised it without looking away from the window. "Yes."

"Tower Team in position."

"Acknowledged. Let the groundcar go. Wait for my signal."

"You got it, boss."

The officer reattached the commlink to his belt. "These mercenaries are competent enough, but they have no sense of proper military language."

Luke sat at a long plasform conference table in a circular room hung with alien artworks. He clapped politely for the final—he hoped—speaker, and suppressed a groan when another portly port official stood up.

"Tonight Msha honors the Jedi Master Luke Skywalker," the official said, making a sweeping gesture in Luke's direction.

Luke straighted the green jacket he had bought in the port. It not only insulated him against Msha's cold, it prevented him from being mistaken for a Sith.

The official droned on "… and we thank the Culinary Guild for their contributions to tonight's ceremonial dinner."

Luke closed his eyes. How did Leia put up with all the ceremonies she had to attend as President? He hoped that corporal was grateful.

At last the official sat down and no one else stood up. Then the waiters arrived. Luke peered suspiciously at the steaming bowl of brown liquid in front of him. What chemicals were native to Msha, he wondered. Cowardisine? Lustasine? Put-green-spots-on-your-skin-asine? He sampled a tiny sip of the soup. It tasted alright. There was no hint of the sweet flavor of angasine. But perhaps the poisons of this world had no flavor. Luke concentrated briefly. What danger he sensed was not in this room. He ate the soup.

Dije and Tal hurried away from the Exporter. "Gotta find some lockers and stow our stuff," Dije said. "Need to be able to move-move-move."

"OK, look, there's a map post."

The two bounded over to it, not bothering to reduce their steps in the light gravity. By the purplish glow of the sky, Tal studied the map.

Dije peered at the colored squares, while keeping a danger-eye out with the Force. "What does it say, Tal?"

"I don't see any lockers listed here, but I'm still working on it. It's written in Galactic Standard, not in Sith."

"Oh."

"No, there's no listing. Here's a cheap hotel, though."

"Let's go. No time to waste." They jumped through the darkening streets, dodging skimmers and leaping over people, until they saw the yellow lamplight of a blocky Formex building with huge stylized beds in high relief all over its façade. They rushed to it.

"Room. One night." Dije struggled with Galactic Standard. She did know the language, being from a starport city, but she was distracted by the pull of the Force.

The counterman quoted a figure, but it was in CSA creds, not Msha pfens. Math had never been her strong suit. The dumped all her pay on the fake green marble countertop.

The counterman looked expectantly at her and then Tal.

Tal gnawed his lower lip, calculating. Then he added some chits to the pile. The hotelier swept them into his hand and gave them an archaic metal key.

Tal and Dije took the stairs in a single leap, only slightly Force-assisted. They charged down a cheaply carpeted hallway, tossed their duffels into the cramped room—Dije noticed there was only one bed, but she had no time, she had Something To Do. Their future depended on it.

Dije slammed the door and leapt down the stairs, and Tal followed.

"Where are we going?"

"I'll know it when I see it." They raced into the gathering darkness.

Dije suddenly stopped and looked around, nostrils widening as if to scent her prey. "There!" She pointed to a tall building six blocks away. "We've got to get up there."

She bounded off. At her heels, Tal asked, "And do what?"

"I'll know when I get there! And yes, I'm sure! It's just like before!"

By the time they reached the tall building, they were sweating despite the cold. Dije pointed at the roof. "There, look!" A pair of Sith sat behind a portable blaster cannon on a tripod. "And there!" She pointed to a building a block farther.

Gasping in the thin air, Tal reached out with the Force and sensed a clot of anger pulsing from the building. Several Sith or Governtists were in there, battle-ready. He figured it was probably Sith mercenaries.

"We have to take the blaster cannon," Dije panted. She started for the building, then whirled and stopped, staring down the street. "Darkness, we're out of time!"

Then Tal felt it: the approach of an awesomely powerful mind, blazing like a star in Msha's night. "Skywalker? Here?"

"Quick, get out of sight!" They dove behind a garbage bin.

A ground vehicle sped down the street.

Mercenaries ran out and fired blasters. The engine of the groundcar gave one loud pop and was silent. The vehicle spun out and rebounded from a wall.

Skywalker jumped out and took up a ready position. In his hand was a sword as green as the eyes of a predatory feline, deflecting red blaster bolts into the street and back at the Sith attacking him.

Dije knew what it was she saw: a lightsaber, Sith-bane, the horror of her people.

The gunners on the roof lined up a perfect shot. Dije stepped out from behind the dumpster and call light. It crackled in her hands. She felt a thrill up her spine as she realized she could power the Force-lightning with the light side. It took only the smallest of movements, a mere pointing of her fingers, to cast the lightning at the gun on the tripod. Seven stories up, the bolt hit the gun and it exploded spectacularly. Lightning lit the street, outshining the fearsome lightsaber. Strange shadows leaped to the walls from the twenty Sith in the street, long looming shapes like a glimpse of their dark souls.

A wide, blue beam splashed off a building, the gun's shot spoiled. Dije realized it was a stun beam, and therefore could not be deflected. Skywalker would have been taken prisoner.

The mercenaries stopped firing their blasters. For a moment, no one moved: not Dije, arms still outstretched but the lightning gone from her hands; not Tal, still hiding behind the stinking garbage bin; not the mercenaries in the street, pointing their guns at Skywalker; not the gunners on the roof, blasted onto their backs and knocked out cold by the explosion of the gun; not the Jedi, holding the ignited blade, alert for new threats. Then, as one, Sith and Jedi turned to stare at Dije.

Slowly, Dije lowered her hands and paced forward. Tal fell in behind her, wondering what she planned. Dije wondered the same thing. Fear welled inside her like blood from a wound, threatening her connection to the light.

Dije stopped a dozen paces from the Sith. "Put your weapons away." She was amazed that her voice was steady.

Some of the Sith started to comply, but one of them barked, "Hold your ground!" The leader, a fortyish man with a pale scar across his forehead tattoo, stepped forward. He passed right by the terrible sword without a glance, and faced Dije.

"There's only two of you."

"How do you know?"

"I know."

"Did you sense me, before I struck?" Dije saw that she was right; it was written in the tightening of his eyes, the thinning of his mouth, the fear steaming like breath in Msha's cold air.

"I sensed Sith. How would I know you were on his side." The mercenary jerked a thumb at Skywalker, who still had his weapon out and clearly had no idea what the Sith were saying to each other in their own tongue.

"There are many sides," Dije replied. "If you want to live, do as I tell you." She thought of the last time she played the game of threat and counterthreat, and inspiration struck. "Or you can end up as sausage-makings stuffed into your own guts. I'll render down your hearts for my victory toast."

"We outnumber you ten to one."

"Think I can't make sheet-lightning as easily as a directed bolt? If you understood the power of the storm, you would be a Dark Lord yourself."

His fear was like strobe, a thick smoke that sharpened vision, promising everything. Dije felt the pull of the dark side, the urge to reach out and crush the wavering mind of her enemy, to make the mercenary her creature, an obedient servant for all time. How easy it would be to push that vacillating will in that direction.

Dije took the harder path. She waited. It was his play.

"That would kill your prize."

"Would it? Skywalker is a Master of the Force. He'd survive as well as any Sith. He'd just be knocked out along with the rest of you. Then my lieutenant and I would have the luxury of time to do whatever we want to your unconscious bodies. Perhaps I'll eat you alive. Perhaps I'll make sausage of your legs and make you eat it when you wake up."

Dije looked past him at his trembling followers. Every Sith feels the storm at least once, during initiation. It was the memory of that indescribable pain that gave the Dark Lords their true power. "How many of you have a taste for agony?"

Some of the Sith backed away, and one broke and ran.

The mercenary leader should have realized that he had lost. Dije had played the game well. But she felt a new determination come over him. She realized the man who ran was not a coward, he was going for help! Dije had no idea how long she had until her opponents' help arrived.

She switched to Standard. "Get out of here, Skywalker. Go!"

The Jedi, still holding a glowing lightsaber, hesitated a moment. Then he leaped over the crashed groundcar and escaped around a corner.

The mercenaries fired at Skywalker's back, but he deflected the bolts without looking. Suddenly Dije felt a stirring in the Force, and a building toppled to the ground as several Sith reached out with their anger and moved its foundation stones.

Skywalker sensed it, too. He jumped out of the way. The Formex blocks sent up a puff and dust. Skywalker was cut off from his escape route. He spun back toward the battle. A huge block of Formex sailed through the air at his assailants. The mercenaries scattered out of its way.

Then the Sith faced their three opponents. Dije floundered in fuzzy, muffled blankets of Force. The mercenaries were using the field effect, suppressing their enemies' Force abilities. It was how groups of Sith held other Sith prisoner. Dije suddenly pictured Skywalker as the naked man at her initiation celebration.

No, she thought. You won't destroy my future.

At her side, Tal was locked down, unable even to move. Skywalker struggled with the unfamiliar assault, still tossing rubble from the toppled buildings, but in slow motion.

Dije realized, they don't expect to defeat him, only delay him. Whoever or whatever is coming, they think it's stronger than a Jedi Master or a Dark Lady or both. It must be nearby.

Cold fear gnawed at her. Dije summoned the storm. Only a tiny, pitiful crackle entered her hands. It wasn't enough. And it was fading.

Dije knew she had only this one chance. In a moment the field effect would hold her, and she would be as helpless as Tal. There was only one thing she could do with such feeble lightning.

Years of listening to Fruitioner teachings warred with her certain knowledge that if she did not break the mercenaries' concentration, she, Tal, and Skywalker would not escape. Her past battled with her future; her conscience with her Force-direction; her heart against her soul.

Dije listened only to the Light. She was open to it, receptive, calm. Her certainty was diamond-clear. The Light was everything. It was everywhere. Even in the battery pack of a mercenary's blaster.

She reached. She stretched. The firefly spark left her hand, slowly, slowly, fluff on the wind. It lodged inside a drawn blaster, and the energy spike overloaded the weapon. With an actinic flash, the blaster exploded. Smoke, blood, and black cloth went everywhere.

The Force-suppression field buckled and went down. A Formex block arcing toward the mercenaries slingshotted to incredible speed and smashed into the street, propelled by the power of Skywalker's suddenly unencumbered mind. The debris cratered the shaking ground. The wind carried chunks of Formex, paving, and dead Sith.

Dije stumbled, covered with dust and blood. She couldn't tell how many had been killed by the overloaded blaster, how many by the falling block. She only knew that she had killed. One, two, a dozen, it didn't matter. She had killed.

She berated herself, "I should have done what I threatened, knocked them all out. But no, I had to try to intimidate them into surrendering, the same stupid idea we rejected on the slave ship. My squeamishness killed those people."

Dije barely noticed Tal take her arm and haul her to her feet. A blaster bolt whizzed past her. "Come on, Dije, we've gotta get out of here. Their reinforcements are arriving." She ran in a daze.

She came back to awareness in a pouring rain. No, she was in a shower, a real water shower. "What am I doing in the shower with my clothes on?"

She saw the filth pouring off of her and remembered the battle. She rinsed off and stepped out. Tal, still muddy, was standing right outside.

"Are you OK?"

She nodded.

"My turn, then." He stepped under the water stream, still in his clothes, too.

"Tal?" she called through the frosted glass shower door.

"What?"

"The slaves. They could be moving them off planet by now. We have to find one of those CSA jollyfolk."

"OK, I'll be out in a minute. Get into some dry clothes."

"Tal?"

"Yeah, what?"

"What happened to Skywalker?"

"He got away. We held off the reinforcements until he could escape."

"I can't feel him anymore, can you? Is he still on Msha?"

"I don't know! Get dressed."

Leia met Luke at the spaceport. "What happened? I felt something strange."

"You'll never guess who I just ran into. Did you bring one of the cruiser's shuttles?"

She nodded impatiently.

"Let's get aboard then."

The two Jedi walked toward the landing strip. "Well?"

"Some of the local Sith decided to take me on. And those two Jedi from Sith-ta showed up. They were dressed up like Sith, and they joined the fight without any weapons. The woman blew up a laser canon I wasn't even aware of." And Luke had just about jumped out of his skin, but he didn't mention that part. "The woman and the Sith leader traded insults in some alien language before the Sith attacked again. They did something really odd. For a second I thought I was in a ysalamir bubble, but I could still feel the Force. It was just, I don't know, deadened somehow. Whatever they did, the other Jedi broke through it. Then the Sith reinforcements arrived. There must have been a hundred of them! So I, um, made a strategic retreat."

"Are you alright?"

"Fine. Puzzled. Who were those Jedi?"

"What about your attackers?"

Luke made a dismissive motion. "They're Sith. Do they need another reason to attack a Jedi?"

Leia said, "Something's not right here. I have a bad feeling about this."

"Me too. For about the past month. This whole part of space feels wrong. Sith-ta's hate has contaminated everything around it."

"That's probably it. Now we can finally be on our way home."

Dije and Tal, in fresh clothes, walked through the nighttime streets of Msha. "Four bars down," said Tal. "A gazillion more to go. What makes you think we'll find an undercover Espo in a bar?"

"Aren't you supposed to be the practical one? If he's spying on smugglers, where else would he be? Hanging around the docks with a sign around his neck saying, I'm a police agent?"

"There's another cantina." The Blue Wookie was a blockhouse with a blue sign in the shape of a Wookie firing a bowcaster at a yellow neon beer mug.

Two Sith walked into the bar. The lighting was dim, the air system obviously nonfunctional; the various inhalants used by the patrons had stratified like a sissy drink into varicolored layers. A scruffy collection of humans and aliens sat—or whatever their species preferred—at the scratched metal bar and the wobbly extruded-plas tables and chairs. A hologame talbe dominated the center of the room. A pair of squid people directed unrealistic fighter planes in a flashy, noisy battle.

"Hey!" squealed the furry bartenders. "No minors allowed!"

"We are adults!" Tal protested. "Can't you see our tattooes?"

"You not fook Tykah. I know humans."

Tal, we have to stay. This is the place. That man in the corner is a cop. I scanned his surface thoughts.

"OK, Tykah, is it? You're new around here, aren't you? You must be, if you know humans but you don't know Sith. Now, I'm feeling generous tonight, so I'll let it go if you give us, say, a free round."

"Ah, human, you—" The bartended squeaked as a bottom floated through the air and placed itself firmly in Tal's hand.

"That's better," said Tal.

You're enjoying this, Dije accused.

You bet I am. There are no Governtist soldiers to stop me here. Tal took a swig. "That's vile."

Be careful, Tal. Pushing around the Force-blind is what the Governtists do.

Tal said, "Look, there's a nice booth in the corner." They walked over to the jollyfolk and sat down.

"No, don't get up," Dije said. "Have drink, friend." She lowered her voice. "I hope you have money with you, because I expect to be paid for what I'm about to tell you."

"What makes you think I'm buying?"

"Don't be coy, Espo. Let's see, sergeant, isn't it?"

"Telepaths."

"Right."

"And why should I pay for information I have no way of knowing is correct?"

"If we just wanted your money, we'd just take it. Look at me. Look at my tattooes. Your puny blaster is no match for the Force."

"You really believe that, don't you?"

"You don't?" Dije had never met anyone who did not take the Force for granted, even those who could not feel it. "Your middle name is Mikel."

"Alright. What's the scoop?"

Tal put in, "Money on the table first."

The man slowly dug into a belt pouch that looked like the preserved hide of a furbearing species. Dije wondered if it were a trophy, like Kerruke's ear string. The cop put ten Corporate Sector Authority creds on the table.

Tal, is that a lot?

Not particularly, but it's OK.

Dije started talking. Before she left the table, she touched the Espo's mind again, to check if he was planning to do something with the information. He was.

Dije and Tal walked back to their hotel. "You're right, Tal. That was a better way than hijacking a ship. I feel good. At least I did something right tonight."

"You did everything right. You saved Skywalker's butt out there, Dije. How many people in the galaxy can say that, huh?"

"I guess."

Back at the room, Tal collapsed onto the bed and announced, "This is my side. I'm going to sleep. If you want to save the universe again tonight, you'll have to do it without me."

"Me too," said Dije. Like Tal, she flopped down cloak and all. "We can wait until morning to find out about the secret weapon."

"What secret weapon?"

"The one the mercenary reinforcements had with them. I didn't see it, but I felt their expectations."

"More spy stuff?" Tal groaned.

"Yeah."

"Oh, go to sleep."

End of Dark Lady of the Sith. Story continues in Demon of the Force.


	3. Chapter 3

Demon of the Force

Fanfic by Erin Lale

Part three in the New Sith War. Continues the story from Dark Lady of the Sith.

The Imperial warlord surveyed the thousand troops assembled in rows on the deck of his Star Destroyer, black on white. The SD's Captain stood at his right hand, an iron-eyed major at his right.

"High Admiral Cinn, Captain Minosaronous," said the Intelligence major, "This is Dokhon Jux, the leader of these mercenaries."

"Behold the Army of Darkness," said Jux. "One thousand Sith stand before you. Yet this is but the smallest portion of the power I bring." Jux turned and extended an arm toward the mechanical monstrosity parked on the hangar deck. It was two stories tall, had a huge head, and two triple-jointed, massive walking legs. "This is the Demon of the Force, the most dangerous weapon ever invented."

The High Admiral looked skeptical. "It has no detectable armaments."

"Neither do I," said the vurgh. "But these mercenaries follow me because I am the strongest among them. There is even a Dark Lady in my ranks, and she has never contested my leadership." Jux said that with special satisfaction. He was finally getting his due. Of course, the Dark Lady in question was fourteen years old and had just joined up two days ago, but he did not mention that. "Like me, this weapon focuses the Force."

"What can it do?" asked Cinn.

"Anything. With me directing it. Nothing, without me. It is the vehicle of my power."

"Can it destroy a planet?"

"Of course. The Force can do anything."

Cinn smiled. "Captain Minosaronous, set your course for Coruscant."

The vurgh knew that now was the time to strike. His new master was pleased with him, and needed him, just like Keshut. If he destroyed the enemy capitol, he would no longer be so needed. Now was the time. "High Admiral, I wonder if I might meet with you in private to explain the operation of the weapon. I am reluctant to discuss the technical details in front of too many people."

"Certainly." Cinn turned to the Captain. "Dismiss the troops." Cinn turned smartly and strode to the elevator, his personal Vader by his side.

In the elevator car, Cinn said, "We shall use my office on the flag bridge."

Jux nodded, careful to keep his gaze subservient, an expression perfected through long years at Lord Keshut's healer. Keshut, the fool, was part of his own weapon now. Keshut had been too trusting. He had also lacked ambition, like all the petty Dark Lords of these squalid years.

The flag bridge was a model of quiet efficiency. Imperial officers in their grey uniforms seemed extensions of the grey machines they served. The High Admiral and the Sith vurgh passed through to Cinn's spacegoing office, which was just as unadorned as the one on Channedlic One.

"Now, what was it you wished to tell me about your superweapon?"

Jux smiled. He was so close to achieving his goal, he could taste it. "We are not going to destroy Coruscant. We're going to occupy it. With the Army of Darkness. The Demon will take care of the planetary defenses."

"That's ridiculous. Only a single ship's complement to occupy a world that size?"

"Ah, but they are Sith."

The High Admiral waved his hand. "Even so. The strategy is set."

"I'm afraid not. You see, I am a vurgh. In case you don't know what that means, let me explain it to you. Your DNA is breaking down. A byproduct of the process by which I learn to duplicate it. Ah—no alarms. Don't even think about it. I'm also a telepath, remember? You are a fool, High Admiral. Or should I say Captain? That was your real Imperial rank, was it not, before your crew died? It must have been lonely on this Star Destroyer all by yourself. Your ambition does you credit. I like a man of vision. I'll save your life, in a few minutes, if you decide to cooperate with me. But first, a small demonstration of my power."

The vurgh's body rippled, and in place of his muscular frame, a rail-thin body swam in his black bodysuit. "You see? I am you. Down to the level of DNA; I would fool any scanner there is. So I don't really need you to command this ship. But I could use you. Decide now, Cinn. You can be the very short lived High Admiral of a one ship fleet, or you can be the first Grand Admiral appointed by the next Emperor."

"You want to be Emperor?" Cinn whispered.

Jux changed back to his own shape. "I will sit on the throne in Imperial City before the week is out. Join me or die."

Cinn stared, his mind reeling.

"You're running out of time, Cinn. You should be feeling the effects about now. Dizziness. Generalized pain. Nausea, perhaps."

"Yes. Yes, alright. I agree. Your Imperial Majesty."

"That's better." Jux made a careless gesture with one hand. "There, you're healed. Now, to ensure your loyalty…" Jux went into Cinn's mind and twisted. He was careful not to break Cinn; the Admiral was no good to him without his wits. But Cinn's ambition was forever stunted at the level of Grand Admiral. There was no possibility of betrayal anymore. "You were a fool, you know. Plotting to have a Darth Vader at your side without realizing what such a man would do. Only the strong should rule, don't you agree?"

"Yes, Your Imperial Majesty," Cinn replied flatly.

"Yes. That's good. Very good." Jux laughed. "And now I shall tell you about the weapon, since you aren't Sith and can't use it. As you guessed, it's not a weapon at all. It's more like a collection. A collection of many fine objects: a beautiful watermarked sword, an illuminated scroll—odd choice, that—a crystal, a paving stone from an ancient temple, a chunk of space debris, a bronze idol, a holocube, a pendant. All of them the final resting place of a Dark Lord of the Sith. Oh, I'm sorry; I'm going to have to erase this conversation. We can't have any of my troops reading your mind, now can we? Not that they couldn't figure out for themselves that the Demon of the Force is a spirit-house; it's obvious to any Sith. Still. Can't be too careful, can we?"

Dije and Tal stood guard at the Demon's foot.

"So how you get us this duty anway?" Dije asked.

"Simple. I volunteered us."

Dije suppressed an unmilitary grin. "OK. I'm ready to go. You know what to do?"

"Sure. I keep your body from slumping over if you pass out."

"That's about it."

"May the Force be with you, Dije."

Dije kept her eyes open, but she no longer saw out of them. She stretched out with the light to the machine behind her. She entered its electrical flows.

The Demon was an elegant construct. Its machine/soul interfaces were the work of a mad genius. She guessed that mind was one of those housed within, and she sought it. It must be powerful; but all the minds here were powerful. It must be godlike in its brilliance, and more ambitious than its captor. Dije found it.

"Who are you?" it asked.

"I am Dije Kun, a Dark Lady. I am still alive. Who are you?"

"I am Magde Tiressi, a Dark Lady like you. Why are you here?"

"Do you wish to be free, Magde Tiressi?"

"If you mean, you're out to defeat the latest controller of the Demon, of course. No one has ever talked to me before. You are different, I sense. You do not want to control the Demon in your turn."

"Only long enough to take it away from Jux. You built this."

"Yes."

"Why? Why did you imprison yourself here?"

"It wasn't like that, at first. I wanted immortality. Not the imitation immortality of being trapped in a rock or a bone for eternity. I wanted to move. To speak. To live in the real world. This machine was the best I could do in my time. I am old, Lady Kun."

"What happened?"

"The Dark Jedi came. He made himself Lord of Lords, ruler of all the Sith. But he was not content; he wanted to rule over both the living and dead. He gathered the receptacles from the temples, and the secret ones from the houses, and the wayside ones where warriors had fallen. He was both Lord and vurgh, as only the Jedi can be. He discovered the secret for controlling the dead through the power of healing. A great vurgh can bring a sould back from the dead, did you know that? It's been done twice, that I know of. The Jedi—he called himself Keldromus—brought them to the edge of life with his power, and harnessed their energy. He created a way to use their souls as battery packs. But he did not live forever. His soul is trapped here, too. He caught me long ago; I was no match for him. Since then, Lords have used this machine to crush their enemies. They control it through the electrical pathways you currently inhabit."

"But how can Jux control the Demon? He's a vurgh, not a Lord."

"The original way, that Keldromus invented, before he had my machine. Keldromus used vurgh ower to resonate our life energies, and enhance his own power."

"How can I take control away from him?"

"I don't know, Lady Kun. Only Keldromus could control it fully. Perhaps a Lord and a vurgh working together, mindlinked, might reproduce Keldromus's power."

"Then what? Lady Tiressi, what will happen when the souls in here gain their freedom?"

"I am the only one who belongs fully in this machine. Destroy their interfaces, and this will be mine alone again, and the other will be only ghosts."

"And what will you do?"

"I don't know, Lady Kun. I truly don't know what I would do with freedom, after all this time. Only that I will not squander it on mere temporal power. Mortal plots lost their fascination centuries ago. Whatever your own plans are, I will not interfere. Set your mind to rest. I am tired of being a weapon."

"Good."

Dije exited the circuits of the Demon of the Force. "Know what we've got to do, Tal. Not gonna be easy."

"No easy road for us, Dije."

The Imperial lieutenant looked at Dije distastefully. "You like machines, don't you, Kun? Volunteering again? Hasn't anyone told you yet that the two main rules for a military career are never volunteer and never pass up a promotion?"

"Doesn't work that way in the mercs, sir. Besides, I'm bored."

"Suit yourself. Why we need mercenary guards at the probe droid launch is beyond me, but here you are: your orders. Have joy of them."

Dije took the chit. "Thank you, sir."

She strode off across the ship, and down two levels. Capt. Minosaronous undoubtedly thought he was wise to send a droid to recon the target area before the ship arrived. Dije approached the beetle-like droid and took up a watch position.

She pushed her mind into the droid. Dije felt for the logic pathways that controlled its record and report programming. There, it was there. Carefully, she altered it.

"Imperial probe droid entering the system, sir," reported the New Republic tech. "It's broadcasting. Picking up a message."

The traffic control supervisor walked over to the screen. The wide-set eyes of the Mon Calamari officer focused on the symbols. "Is that code?"

"No, sir. The computer says it's Modern Sith. Translating now. It's in the clear, sir, and addressed to Commander Skywalker."

"Let's have it."

The technical officer read off the translation: "Skywalker, it's us, your two friends. Imperial attack on Coruscant imminent using a thousand Sith mercenaries and a Sith superweapon carried on the Star Destroyer Supremacy. High Admiral Cinn and Healer Jux are in charge. Only you and I together can defeat Jux's Demon of the Force. Be ready. We are on the Star Destroyer."

Luke read his message on the bridge of the Liberator. He turned to Leia with his eyes wide. "A thousand? I can't face a thousand! Twenty of them almost got me on Msha. They have some ability to damp the Force around whoever they're fighting. It's like a ysalamir field."

Leia said, "We could get reinforcements from the Academy."

"There still won't be enough of us. And I'm not going to take half-trained apprentices into a battle with the Sith. It's a new Sith War, only this time, they have an army, and the Jedi don't. I'm not even sure I understand their new power, and what is this weapon? How can I do anything about it if I'm—that's it!"

"What's it?"

"Leia, do we still have ysalamiri on Coruscant?"

"Yes. Yes! We'll have to board the Star Destroyer." Leia turned to the comm officer. "Get me a secure line to Fleet HQ."

The Demon of the Force rose from the hangar bay and floated silently out into space. Its bulk, appearing massive to soldiers standing next to it, was a mere fleck in space. It had no engines, no weapons emplacements, no power plant, no communications gear, no computer. Its mechanism drew only the smallest amount of power from its ancient battery, no more than any cargo droid. It was virtually undetectable.

Except in the Force. Dokhon Jux sent it into Coruscant's system ahead of the Star Destroyer, radiating dark energy to those who could see. Jux willed it, and it was so. The great machine flew like a comet.

It passed an orbital defense platform. Jux focused through the machine, and the platform came apart at the seams, all its welds and rivets disintegrating. It was just so much space junk now. The Demon moved on.

The gigantic defense platforms fired their shipkiller guns, crisscrossing space with red beams of annihilation as broad as the Demon itself. The Demon of the Force evaded the shots effortlessly. When any came too close, it simply was not there.

The Demon approached another orbital weapon. The minds within it screamed in frustration, hating their servitude, hating the mere vurgh who bound proud Lords to his will. Their hate fueled the attack. The second platform disintegrated.

A stream of fightercraft came at the Demon. The X-wings and the Demon were similar in size. Each time an X-wing strafed the Demon, the Demon was somewhere else. It seemed to blink in and out of existence.

The Demon of the Force did not need comm gear to overhear the pilots' chatter: "That things' doing microlightspeed jumps!" and "Where the hell's the engine?"

The vurgh reached out through the Demon and seized living tissue as the pilots passed by. A very simple operation, the reverse of the procedure to treat altitude sickness, left each pilot unconscious as he finished his run. The fighters streamed by the Demon and took straightline courses thereafter. They fell into the atmosphere of Coruscant, becoming no more than a lightshow for those few on the city world who had a view of the sky.

The next wave of fighters hung back, lobbing torpedoes. The Demon destroyed another orbital defense platform.

Dije sat in a stormtrooper's ready room, just off from the pinnaces. She, Tal, and twenty-eight other Sith watched the battle on a vidscreen. The pinnaces' command crews readied themselves.

Dije reached out with her feelings. Where in the name of Darkness was Skywalker?

Lady Tiressi was out of Dije's range, clear across the system, but she sensed for her anyway. She shifted her awareness, just out of phase, to that place where the dead live. To her astonishment, she found spirits there, not the dark and placebound spirits of the Sith, but shining beings, roaming free. Dije was so surprised she lost her concentration, and the luminous entities faded from her inner sight.

Dije had no time to think about her vision. The klaxon sounded and the light over the ready room door came on. It was time to board the pinnace.

This is it, Tal. With or without Skywalker, we have to move. If we leave this ship we'll never get to Jux.

Are you crazy?

The Force is with us, Tal.

I knew you were going to say that, you lunatic! What's the plan? Do you even have a plan? Wait, don't tell me: you'll know when you get there.

Come on.

With the others, they headed for the pinnance. Dije made sure she and Tal were last in line. When the others were aboard, Dije reached out to the circuitry in the walls. The pinnace's airlock snapped shut and the docking clamps released. All along the row, pinnaces launched by themselves as their bewildered pilots fought unresponsive controls.

"Impressive. Oh-oh, company."

A Sith raced down the corridor toward them, cape billowing behind her. "Don't worry, Tal. I stacked the deck."

The blonde Sith scooted to a stop in front of Dije. "I did as you said, my Lady, what next?"

"To engineering, Kerruke. I want this ship sitting dead in space. Shut down the shields and the weapons systems. Tal and I will take the bridge."

"Yes, my Lady."

As Dije and Tal raced away, Tal asked, "What did you tell her?"

"That she'll be paid a lot, of course. She's a mercenary."

The sound of the engines changed as the dreadnought halted. It was too soon for Kerruke's takeover of engineering; the ship must be stopping to pick up its wayward pinnaces. Since they launched too early, they were out of range of Coruscant. Picking them back up would take time. Dije smiled at the delay she had caused.

"This isn't the way to the bridge."

"No. Computer core first."

They got into an elevator. "We need an access code," Tal said.

"Ha." Dije concentrated briefly. Compared to the simultaneous launch of the pinnaces, this was child's play. The lift started up.

"I've seen you fix electronic gadgets, but could you always do things like this?"

"My control is finer now. And I no longer feel uncomfortable using the Force, as I did when all I knew was the Dark Side. Making things work means you understand electrical flows. It's the baby step to becoming a Dark Lord."

"We're stopping."

"You watch for people. I do the machine."

Behind transparisteel, the lights of the computer core blinked in silence. Dije overrode the security lock with a thought and they passed through the door and entered the core. Massive computer banks stretched up and down a refrigerator air shaft, ringed by metal walkways like stiff lace collars around the necks of rich Governtists.

Tal tuned his Force senses to search for anything living, guards or technicians.

Dije gripped the handrail, locked her knees, and pushed away from her body. As always, she carefully built a connection back to it; leaving it entirely would trap her in the core like Magde Tiressi in her droid. Dije had no wish to become a starship.

Dije crashed the computer. The blinking lights stayed on. She had not physically damaged it. It simply started spitting error messages out at all its terminals.

Dije slid back into her body, and turned to speak to Tal, but found herself staring at an attack droid. It hovered above the floor on powerful repulsors. It extended one of its six skeletal arms toward Dije. The arm was tipped with a blaster.

Dije reached out to the droid with the Force and shut it off.

She looked wildly aroud for Tal, then looked down. Tal was a puddle of black cape at her feet.

She knelt. "Tal?"

"I'm sorry, Dije," he croaked. "I was looking for life forms. It snuck up on me."

"Are you OK?"

"No?"

Dije flipped the cape back and saw the blood on the metal catwalk. It dripped through the holes in the decking, falling away into nothingness. The blood came from a hole through Tal's middle.

Dije unhooked Tal's campe and pulled it down to his midsection, and knotted the ends in a makeshift bandage. "Tal? Wake up, Tal. We can't hang around here. They'll know somebody's messing with the computer. There'll be guards here any moment."

She switched to telepathic haranguing.

Wake up, darkness, wake up, Tal! Tal? Tal? Tal?

There was no response.

Dije sought a different mind. Skywalker? Are you here yet? Jedi are all healers, they say. You can help Tal. Where are you?

Skywalker was still out of range.

Dije was no vurgh. She had no talent for living flesh. She reached out to Tal anyway, desperate. Maybe she could support him until help arrived. But there was nothing there to support. Tal's heart was at rest.

Tal?

Tal's mind was not there.

"NO!!!"

Dije screamed, grief turning to guilt turning to anger. Hatred for Dokhon Jux bloomed within her.

Never had Dije hated with such passion. Her ire at Kijur during her initiation had been mere adolescent outrage; this was the mature hatred of a Dark Lady of the Sith.

Her anger was beyond containing. She lashed out without knowing or caring what she did. Force-lightning spun from her hands in all directions, traveling up and down the airshaft. The computer went dark. On every level connected with the airshaft, lights, doors, weapons embrasures, and ship's comm ceased to function.

The Dark Side flowed for her, vast as the intergalactic void. It spoke to her, promising vengeance. Suddenly, in the Darkness, the Demon was within her range.

Lady Kun! Jux is draining us! I am in agony!

What's he doing?

He prepares to fire on the picket ship. I never designed my robot for such massive energies! It is tearing us apart!

What would happen if I channeled even more energy? Would the Demon shut down?

That would destroy me! Lady Kun, do not attempt it!

Dije weighed the souls of the dead Sith against the living beings on the frigate defending Coruscant. And all those on the planet below. There was her own soul to consider, but she was alone and friendless. The people of Coruscant were worth more. Knowing she was making the Governtists' bargain, Dije summoned the Dark.

The storm was hers to wild, black clouds across the universe. Dije raised her hands. She knew she could pour the Force-lightning right through the ship and fry the Demon out in space. Without the Demon, Jux would be just another vurgh: powerful, but no match for a Dark Lady. Dije could not defeat him in the light, and now she was alone. Her reinforcements had not arrived. Tal was dead. It was up to her. Her alone.

Dije gave herself to the Dark Side.

Force-lightning shot from her hands, toward the wall, and stopped. The crackle faded from her. Dije stared at her hands, and reached for the storm. It was not there.

"I'm Force-blind," she whispered. "It's not a suppression field."

The currents of power all around her were invisible. The universal hum of life-forms was silent. She could not even detect the Force in herself, in the living matter of her own body. A suppression field did not do this.

Dije fell onto Tal's cooling body. "I didn't mean it!" she sobbed. "I won't do it again! Please, not this!"

She did not know whom she addressed. Perhaps some Fruitioner god.

The Force remained apart from her. Dije let herself cry, then. She screamed and shook her fists and hated with all her might in the luxury of Force-blindness.

"Maybe this is better," she told Tal's corpse. "There's too much anger inside me. I could never be a Jedi. I was fooling myself. Now I can be angry and it doesn't matter. It doesn't make any difference at all."

Dije thought about her enemies and found no power in the thought. The Dark Side was an illusion. For the first time in her life, Dije experienced normal human anger.

"It brings no strength. Nothing. It's a weakness to the Force-blind. Darkness, I never knew. It's a weakness in the Force, too. Because this is the way normal human beings are. And I'm human after all, with or without the Force."

Experimentally, Dije began to sing. The words of the calming song brought no light to her. But she felt strength in her body. Not the Force, but a strength nonetheless.

"Peace is stronger. It's just harder to achieve."

Dije grieved. She sang the calming song, softly, to Tal. She did not know if his spirit heard her, but she sang it anyway. In the absence of the Force, she had developed faith.

In that moment, the Force was with her again. She looked up, startled, wondering if a Fruitioner god had heard her prayer. She finished the song, and stood up, strong in the light.

Dije shifted her awareness, just out of phase. Light-beings swam all around her. She detected no spirit imbued in anything in the room, though. Tal had not preserved his soul in the Sith way.

"Are any of you Tal? Did Tal die the true death? Good bye, Tal. I hope some kindly god will let you into paradise."

Dije went back to the elevator, all alone. She nudged its circuitry and rode it to the bridge. Tal was dead and Skywalker still was not here. She was sure she would detect the presence of such a powerful mind. Everything was still up to her.

She rode the elevator to the bridge level. The corridor was a shambled. There were collapsed walls and bodies everywhere. Dije drew the edge of her cape over her face to filter the heavy electrical smoke. She turned a corner and her Force senses stopped again.

Dije just stood there, dumpstruck, although four soldiers in an unfamiliar uniform were pointing blasters at her. She realized these must be her reinforcements. Imperials had few women and aliens, and these four soldiers were one human woman and three aliens. One of the aliens carried another alien on his back with a frame backpack.

The human spoke to her in Standard: "Hands up!"

Dije complied, confused. Her cape dropped, and she coughed in the acrid smoke.

"Over here! Now!"

Dije walked over to them. "Take me to Skywalker."

"What for, Sithspawn?" Then the woman looked at her oddly, as if comparing her to a description. "Well, alright. But keep those hands where I can see them."

The New Republic soldiers herded her to the bridge proper. They passed a jammed-open door, and Dije saw Skywalker. She still could not feel his presence, or anyone else's.

With Skywalker were President Organa-Solo, a Wookie, and two human men, one with another of the piggyback aliens. Only the aliens on the backpacks went unarmed. The Wookie carried a lethal looking crossbow weapon, the two Jedi had ignited lightsabers, and everyone else had blaster rifles in their hands and sidearms on their hips.

The soldiers brought Dije to Skywalker. "She said to take her to you. Is she the one you told us about?"

Skywalker nodded, affirmation or greeting or both. "She is. What is your name?"

"Dije."

"Glad to have you with us."

Organa-Solo ordered the soldiers to hold the corridor, and the four took up defensive positions.

Skywalker asked Dije, "Where's the other Jedi?"

"Who?"

"Your friend."

"Tal—he's dead."

"I'm sorry."

"Skywalker, I can't feel the Force. I'm useless."

"We're in a ysalamir bubble. We can't feel the Force in here, but Jux can't feel us, either. With the ship's security systems gone haywire, they'll never know we're coming."

"Oh."

The Wookie yowled. The man with the alien on his back replied, "I'm with you, Chewie. Let's get on with it."

Organa-Solo looked around at her team. "Everybody ready? Let's go."

Dije had no idea what she was supposed to do without her powers, but she was beyond fear now. She followed Skywalker.

The team burst onto the bridge firing blasters and bowcaster quarrels. A moment later, the Imperials returned fire. The bridge was a web of red laser beams.

Skywalker and Organa-Solo ran left, everybody else ran right. Dije followed the Jedi. A blaster bolt sizzled through her cape, and she dove for cover. She crawled across the floor after the Jedi.

Her Force senses streamed back to her. She looked around, and realized she and the Jedi occupied a space where the Force flowed, and the people on the other side of the bridge did not.

Dokhon Jux was on the starboard side. He was trapped in the Force-null area. Dije reasoned, that must be why he was gibbering. She knew how frightening in way to lose all connection to the Force.

Dije realized the shooting was over. Tentatively, she stood up. The two Jedi stood nearby, lightsabers hummings. Dije wanted to put some distance between herself and those moaning balefire blades, but she did not know how far she could move away and still feel the Force. She stood her ground.

"What are you doing?" Jux cried. "This is no suppression field!" He spoke in Sith, addressing Dije.

"Give up." That was all she said. This was not the game of threat and counterthreat. This was no game at all.

"Surrender to the Jedi?" Jux scoffed. "Whatever deal you think you've made with them, Dark Lady, they won't keep it. Join me and we both might live!"

Evidently the vurgh had listened to the same boogeyman tales as a child that Dije had. There was no reasoning with that. Even Dije was afraid of the lightsabers, and she wanted to become a boogeyman and learn the forbidden boogey secrets.

From a door that had been closed a moment ago, a red beam lanced across the bridge and struck the alien in the backpack. High Admiral Cinn ducked back into his office and shut the door.

Jux looked up in awe. He straightened his spine, completely surrounded and unafraid.

Dije felt the no-Force space in the other half of the bridge fade away. "The alien," she muttered.

Jux roared, "Face me now, idiots! Me and the Demon of the Force!"

Dije felt her flesh elasticizing. It started to run. All around her, the same thing was happening to everyone but Jux. Their skin ran like paint.

Link! Skywalker, link with me! Skywalker!

She felt a tenuous bridge between them, as if her were as unaccustomed to mindlink as a child. Leia?

No, it's Dije! We have to get control of the Demon away from Jux! Follow me!

Dije stretched for Lady Tiressi. She knew the Demon was out of her range, but Skywalker's mind was so powerful, it was not out of his. She pointed him in the right direction and then leapfrogged on his power, just as she had accidentally done on Sith-ta.

Lady Tiressi!

Yes? came the faint echo. Then, stronger, Who is it? Lady Kun? And a vurgh?

Close enough. Show us what Keldromus did.

Magde Tiressi summoned her failing strength and poured the ancient lore out to them. It was sickening. Dark Side rot of the face of the galaxy. It stuck to Dije and Skywalker like tar.

Skywalker, you got that? Hey, Skywalker?

Yes.

Now we have to reverse the process. I've got my half figured out. Hey, don't fade away on me now, stay linked! This is war, not a neon, here! Darkness, you'd think you'd never done this before.

OK, go nonverbal if you want to. Me, I don't want to see what we're about to do in images. Ready?

Fire. Ice. Falling, falling, falling…

The summit of wild excess killing the hard certainty horror. Red gold vapor wing doll yarn blade. The impermanence of eternity, farther and farther away from the lightworlds, farther and farther and farther from living again. Liberty, pyre, ink, release, drowning. The end of the soul/machine interface. Shards. Spirits housed quietly, no longer the living dead. Dismembered ghosts.

Skywalker fell out of the link. Dije had to know the results, and clung on just long enough to feel a gentle pressure, like a pat on the shoulder, from the departing Lady Tiressi. Then Dije snapped back to her body.

Jux stared at them open-mouthed. "How? How?"

Dije's skin no longer dripped.

A blaster fired. Jux fell over.

Dije looked across at the shooter, the human with the backpack on, and the smoking remains of the alien Cinn had killed. The human was dark-haired, with a scar across his chin. He looked like a holodrama hero. Dije imagined Tal might have grown into a man like that.

The man said, "Scratch one Sithspawn. Now for the Admiral. Chewie." The man indicated the office door and he and the Wookie converged on it. They opened the door, weapons pointing inside. No one was there. "Lifepod's been fired."

Organa-Solo spoke into a commlink: "Capture the lifepod that just jettisoned."

Dije focused on Jux. "Skywalker? He's not dead. He's in a healing trance."

The Jedi walked over to the crumpled form of the would-be Emperor. "You're right."

Everyone in the room moved to look at the Sith. Jux was a muscular man in his prime, but he did not look particularly impressive curled up on the floor.

Organa-Solo said, "I suppose we should just kill him. Holding him prisoner would be impractical. Ysalamiri can die, after all. As we just saw."

Luke asked, "When has the New Republic ever killed prisoners of war?"

"We've never captured a Sith before." The Jedi woman's voice was hard.

The full implications f that statement took a minute to dawn on Luke. His face soured. "I always wondered…"

Organa-Solo drew breath and puffed it out, seeming to find as much calm in that as Dije did in several verses of song. Leia said, "If he were an ordinary man, he would go to trial. But he's a Force user, so this is a Jedi matter. It's up to us to pass judgment, and I say he dies. Do you disagree, Luke?"

Skywalker deactivated his lightsaber. "I think we should ship him back to Sith-ta and re-blockade the planet. We can't risk any more armies of Sith attacking us."  
"You've always been too forgiving."

Skywalker turned to Dije. "What's your vote? Tie-breaker."

Dije's eyes widened. "You're asking me?"

"Sure, why not? Like Leia said, it's a Jedi matter."

"Does that mean you'll teach me? I never got a chance to ask you, but I guess you guessed."

Skywalker looked startled. "Your old master never gave you the title? Your skills seem pretty complete to me."

Dije realized he didn't know she was a Sith. She summoned all her courage and told him the truth. "The only title I've been given is Lady." She touched the tattooed lines beside her mouth. "These are real, Skywalker. I want to be a Jedi. I want to learn the way of the light. I've pieced together what I can, but it's all patchwork. Will you teach me?"

It was Organa-Solo who spoke first. "You're a Sith?"

Organa-Solo still had her lightsaber activated. Dije eyed it and took a step back.

Luke held up a hand. "Easy, both of you. Yes, Dije, I will teach you."

"Thank you. I've been dreaming of this for a long time. I only wish Tal were here."

"I understand. So. What is your opinion on Jux? Consider it your first assignment as an apprentice Jedi."

"I'd rather not kill anybody if we can avoid it."

"Good."

"Only," Dije rushed out, "if you really are going to put the blockade back up around Sith-ta, leave some room for me to land." Dije had no idea where this was coming from. She didn't want to go back. Then she knew: this was another Force-direction. She had Something To Do. "On Sith-ta, nobody even knows there is a light side of the Force. I only found out by viewing contraband. When I'm a Jedi, I want to give my people a choice."

"Ah," Skywalker nodded. "You don't just want to be a Jedi. You want to be a Jedi Master. So that you can train others to be Jedi."

Organa-Solo told her, "Whatever we might do about the blockade, it'll be a politican decision. It will be years before the question is decided in the Senate." Leia switched off her saber and spoke into her commlink. "Get some ysalamiri up here. We have a prisoner."

The victory celebration on Coruscant was like a Fruitioner Festival mixed with a Governtist airshow. People danced in the streets while X-wings released fireworks. Nobody smoked any strobe, though. Dije was dying for a hit. It had been nerve-wracking seeing that Kerruke was freed and paid. But in the end Dije's loyal follower had left in her own newly purchased space yacht, very happy with her service to her Lady.

Hardly anybody was even tipsy, at least among the VIP's on the landing field. Dije felt odd to be up here, in the company of pilots, alien Senators, and various military and civilian leaders.

"I've come a long way from Dullsville, Tal," Dije said, although she still could not sense his spirit. "Kinda lonely out here with all the bigshots."

She felt a wave of Force use coming from the working part of the landing area. She made her way through the throng, wondering who it could be. It wasn't Skywalker or his sister. Someone was repairing something, her own talent. It was a Dark Lord. But what was one doing here?

Dije looked around for a tattooed figure, but there were only pilots and ground crew, plus a little boy up on a gantry.

One of the crewers shouted, "Hey kid, get down from there!" The boy climbed down. To Dije's senses, he shone with the Light. Not a Dark Lord, then, but a Bright Lord.

The crewer said, "Now shoo, this is a dangerous place."

"Aw…"

Dije approached the child. "Care to watch the fighters with me, my Lord?" gestured to the edge of the landing field, where the VIPs were viewing the show.

"It's Anakin."  
"Hello, Lord Anakin."

"Just Anakin!"

"Hello, Just Anakin."

"No!" The boy hopped up and down. His anger dimmed his lightside energy briefly. "Anakin. Anakin Solo. I was named after my grandfather," he said proudly. "I'm going to be a Jedi like him."

"OK, Anakin. I'm Dije."

"Are you a Jedi?"

"I'm an apprentice Jedi." She felt an odd surge of pride, mixed with grief: because Tal would never get to be one.

"Me too. You need a friend, don't you?"

"Yes. I lost my only friend."

"I'll be your friend, Dije. Come on." He took her hand, and led her toward the celebration.

The End.


End file.
